
Class _2L)l2i35D 

Book lSS 

Copyright N? 



GDraRIGHT DEPOSIIi 



YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 




The Author 



YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

WHERE AND HOW FOUND 

Rev. Ef J.**JUNGBLUT 

OF Carroll (Mt. Carmel), Iowa 



FREDERICK PUSTET CO. (Inc.) 

NEW YORK AND CINCINNATI 

1923 



BX2350 



Jfilftl ®batat: 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D. 

Censor Librorum 

* PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D. 

Archbishop of New York 



New York, November 21, 1922. 



Copyright, 1923 

BY Rev. E. J. JUNGBLUT 



Printed in U. S. A. 
©C1A696454 



PREFACE 

I WROTE this little book for you, dear reader, but 
also to sanctify myself. I wrote, not for fame, but 
to satisfy my conscience and to do good to souls. 
And the souls I had in mind, though I wrote for all 
who will read, were mainly the young. My first 
thought went out to my friends, or rather to those who 
are, or had once been, my children; and my second 
thought went out to the young in general. The young 
were the object of my predilection all my lifetime. 
And even now, as I am growing old, my attention to 
them is the sweetest portion of my care. I always felt, 
and I still feel, that whatever good I do them is a good 
that reaches deep and far into the future. And what 
did I want to tell them ? I wanted to show them God 
in their lives. I wanted to show them, in the story of 
a real life gone through, how thankless, nay how dan- 
gerous, it would be in them to put God purposely from 
their souls, or even only to let Him there feel lonely 
from want of attention. In this consists the opening 
chapter of the book. Then I come to speak of that 
which beautifies, like nothing else, the hearts and souls 
and lives of the young, — of that, therefore, which, if 
they attain it, should be the fulfillment of their dreams. 
That portion constitutes the kernel of my work. It 
is that for which I undertook my task. The appendix 



vi PREFACE 

consists of a few reflections calculated to keep the 
reader's mind in a receptive mood by bringing before 
it the tremendous meaning of eternity, and the blight- 
ing foot-prints of sin on nearly everything that belongs 
to time. Such a frame of mind is necessary to appreci- 
ate, at their full value, the imperishable treasures of 
self-immolation as found in chastity and humility. 

The non-Catholic readers, if I should be so fortunate 
as to find any, will not find a single sentence to offend 
them or to reflect upon them. I did not write for 
them, nor did I even think of them from the beginning 
to the end, except in those few instances in which I 
had to give an answer to objections usually or at least 
often made. They should therefore read with the full 
assurance that there is not a syllable to hurt them, 
and that here is pure Catholic doctrine as Catholics un- 
derstand it and practice it. After they have carefully 
read and understood me, they shall be at perfect liberty 
to judge themselves of the beauty of our teaching. I 
am not afraid to leave the verdict to them. 

I wrote also for the purpose of saving vocations. 
That is the reason why I give, in the opening chapter, 
the history of a wonderful grace of vocation, of a 
grace lavishly bestowed, terribly trifled with, and very 
nearly lost. And are there not thousands, nay tens of 
thousands, who could tell a similar story, with perhaps 
only this difference, that they really and irrevocably 
threw that priceless treasure away? And what answer 
can they give in the hour of judgment to Him who will 
want to know what they did with it? The dearth of 
teachers for our parochial schools is growing greater 



PREFACE vii 

and greater. And what is the reason? Does God not 
provide for the needs of the Church by giving voca- 
tions? He does; but the vocations are lost — lost 
through the blighting influence of worldliness and 
passion and pleasure. 

God grant that the young may give me a hearing. 
I trust that it is no presumption in me to think that 
I shall win them with what I have to say, if only they 
condescend to read me through to the end. Let them 
not imagine that it is a dull book on a dull subject 
which I invite them to peruse. Let them be generous 
enough to read, and I promise that I shall be interest- 
ing enough to fascinate. 

I am not conscious of having traveled over a beaten 
road. My method, my arguments, my language, are 
entirely my own, though the truths are as old as the 
hills. Nowhere had I found them treated after my 
fashion, or with my attempted completeness and pre- 
cision; and that is the reason I took up my pen. It is 
not for me but for the gentle reader to decide in how 
far, if at all, I have succeeded in my aim and object. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The History of a Vocation i 

II. Chastity — Its Nature 24 

III. Virginity 31 

rV. Celibacy 34 

V. Opposition to Chastity 38 

VI. Chastity in the Light of Reason and 

GoD*s Law 43 

VII. Chastity in the Light of Revealed 

Mysteries 47 

VIII. Chastity^s Natural Charms 58 

IX. Chastity Praised by Scripture and the 

Fathers of the Church 61 

X. Chastity Sometimes Honored by In- 

CORRUPTION 64 

XI* Virginity in Heaven 69 

XII. Examples of Chastity 71 

XIII. Ideal and Model of Chastity 78 

XIV. Impurity 82 

XV. Fairness of Virtue and Hideousness op 

Vice Stamped into the Features 91 

XVI. Humility — Its Nature 94 

XVII. Excellence of Humility 103 

XVIII. Humiliations 107 

XIX. Mistaken Notions about Humility m 

XX. Effects of Humility 115 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI. Sins against Humility 121 

XXII. Our Divine Model 135 

XXIII. Humility should be Unconscious, but 

Loved in Self More than in Others 148 

XXIV. Advantages of Humility 152 

XXV. The Rest of Humility 159 

XXVI. Humility's Love of Obscurity 170 

XXVII. Peace of Heart 177 

XXVIII. Remarks 187 

XXIX. Simplicity 190 

XX. Closing Words 194 

APPENDIX 

Eternity 199 

The Sorrows of Sin 209 

Death and the Dead 215 

Parting 220 



YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 



CHAPTER I 
THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 

DEAR reader, I have something to say to you, 
something, I imagine, which will intensify 
your love and your admiration and your 
desire for what is great and good and beautiful in 
character. But, before broaching my subject, I 
have a story to tell. It is taken from real life, and 
there is no fiction about it. I wish you would bear 
that in mind as you read. It is the story of a soul 
pursued by grace — by the grace of conversion and 
by the grace of vocation. After you have perused 
this story to the end, pause, dear reader, and im- 
agine, if you can, what the result would have been 
if the grace of God had not been victorious. Pause 
longer and reflect more seriously if you are still 
young, with a character still to mold, with a life 
still lying before you either to soil by sin or to 
consecrate by virtue, and with perhaps a vocation 
still in you either to save or to lose. It is difficult, 
in these noisy times of worldliness and of pleasure, 



2 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

to win attention and to awaken interest when 
speaking of the affairs of the soul, or of the ways 
of God, or of the things of eternity. It is for this 
reason that I introduce my subject with a rapid 
sketch, truthfully given, from a life which is still 
in its fullness, and which I happen to know as well 
as my own. It is that of Alan Alfred. He revealed 
it to me, and gave me permission to reveal it to 
others, provided only that the revelation glorifies 
God and does good to souls. Therefore, whatever 
cannot serve that purpose, I will take scrupulous 
care to omit. My story will not be one of praise. 
It will be one of sin, but of sin conquered by in- 
finite mercy and by boundless grace. Look into 
Alan Alfred's heart, dear reader, as I open it to 
your view. Perhaps you can see in it, as in a 
mirror, much of what is in your heart also. Per- 
haps his sins will awaken a salutary remorse in 
your mind for yours. Perhaps the pleadings of 
grace and his deafness to those pleadings are a 
faithful portrayal of something similar in your own 
life. Perhaps you cannot look at the picture with- 
out a blush of shame and a feeling of alarm for 
yourself. At any rate, it is the concrete reality 
which awakens the senses, and makes a vivid and 
lasting impression on the memory. That is my 
reason for telling the story. 

Alan Alfred was born with a nature so sensitive 
and so impressionable and so imaginative as to 
make peace and happiness almost impossible for 
him in his earlier years. Keenly alive to joy and 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 3 

pleasure, he drank them in too eagerly; and, on 
the other hand, he found, or rather created for 
himself, an immense amount of deep and needless 
pain. He loved those near him with an affection 
so intense as to make it a torture; and he con- 
stantly anticipated his sorrow of losing them by 
picturing to himself their possible death or departure. 
For the domestic animals on his father's farm he 
formed an attachment so tender that he wept, as over 
dear ones, when they died or were otherwise disposed 
of. Every little windstorm, in his imaginative mind, 
was a possible tornado; and every smoke on the dis- 
tant horizon was a treacherous fire that might steal 
upon him in the night and burn him alive. From 
imagined wars and pestilences he suffered, foolishly, 
quite as much as if they had been actually raging 
around him. Everything else affected him in a like, 
proportionate manner. With these characteristics 
pointed out for a better understanding, I will now 
proceed to the details of my story. 

Human nature, as we find it in the individual, is 
always a mixture of much good and evil. The good 
is a remnant of God's beautiful and original creation. 
The evil is a result of original and actual sin. In Alan 
Alfred's nature there was, even in his earliest child- 
hood, an immense amount of either element. His 
passions were unusually strong, and he took but little 
pains to control them. He was peevish to the 
last degree when the work to which he was put 
did not suit him. For hours at a time he would 
secretly cry from anger and impatience and vexa- 



4 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

tion. But this trouble seemed gradually to pass 
away, and disappeared at the age of about eight 
or nine. It was his misfortune, if this mild name can 
be given to his obstinacy, to have been a faithless child 
of grace from the beginning. Such a thing as inno- 
cence he does not remember to have existed for him. 
His sins go back as far as his recollection. And their 
number and wickedness are wellnigh unmentionable. It 
is no exaggeration and no affectation for him to claim 
that in this he was altogether unlike other children. It 
would be difficult, if not impossible, to find parallel ex- 
amples of such early perversion and of such deep and 
repeated falls. And the sinning went on, more or less, 
through his entire childhood, but never without re- 
morse, and never without a secret yearning for virtue 
— a remorse and yearning which made him very miser- 
able amid his sins. And what else was this misery but 
the fierce conflict of his passions with the grace of God 
in his soul? In this condition he arrived at the age of 
eleven, when he was to make his first confession and 
communion. His conscience had afflicted him so 
much, and the grace of God had touched him so deeply 
and so continually, that he longed, almost with the 
strength of death, to put an end to his unhappiness by 
a thorough and true repentance. But the task seemed 
so enormous that his heart failed him. He examined 
his conscience for weeks ; but his sins seemed so mul- 
titudinous and great that he simply despaired. In his 
distress he went so far as to tempt Heaven for a 
miracle. He laid a pencil with big sheets of paper into 
a secret place for his guardian angel to write down the 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 5 

sins of his life for his coming confession, which he 
had utterly despaired of arranging in his memory, and 
then devoted some days to earnest prayer for the suc- 
cessful accomplishment of that miracle. It is needless 
to say that his hope was disappointed and his prayer 
not heard. Nor was this the end of his great trouble ; 
rather it was the beginning of it. The day for con- 
fession finally came. To tell what happened to him on 
that mournfully memorable day, it is necessary to call 
attention to a very strange characteristic of his nature. 
I may well call it strange, because I have never found 
it, in all the years of my experience, so far as I know, 
in any other child. This characteristic consisted in an 
invincible reticence. His little heart could keep secrets 
almost like the grave; and often, like the grave, it 
simply refused to give them up. He knew that this 
was a case in which his secrets had to be revealed, and 
he meant to reveal them ; but, when the moment came, 
a something seemed to seal his lips, and the necessary 
revelation was not made. He had the kindest of 
Fathers confessors; but his natural timidity and the 
imagined frightfulness of his story, acting upon him 
together, threw a deep silence over him after he had 
entered the confessional. After a somewhat painful 
pause, his confessor kindly asked him if he was not 
yet able to confess alone ; and he answered that he was 
not. The kind Father, not in the least suspecting a life 
like his, asked him the ordinary questions, gave him 
absolution, and dismissed him. The poor child arose, 
under a burden heavier than mountains and in a 
wretchedness that has no name, — ^and walked away. 



6 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

He had not the heart to come back and repair. He had 
not the courage to undo what he had done. Time went 
on. The grace of God was not silent. It called him 
louder than ever. But it called him and touched him 
in vain. It is painful for him to remember, even at 
this distance of time, how the darkness of utter de- 
spair came over him at that time, and how desperately 
he attempted to reconcile himself to the thought of his 
future certain damnation. Whilst he was in that de- 
plorable condition, five months, the most miserable of 
his life, passed away. And in that time, too, it hap- 
pened that the angel of death came to him, if he ever 
came to one that is still alive. Acute Bright's disease 
after scarlet fever, the result of a cold drenching rain, 
filled his lungs completely with water within a few 
hours at night whilst he was supposed to be asleep in 
his bed. His lungs filled up till his breath completely 
failed him. In an agony of suffocation he fainted, and 
did not recover his consciousness till the crisis was 
over. Nobody, not even his physician, had any hope 
left for his recovery. But nobody, except himself, had 
the slightest intimation of the still more hopeless con- 
dition of his soul. And where and what would that 
soul now be if he had then died? And to whom does 
he owe it, except to God's infinite mercy, that he has 
not been dwelling, for already more than forty years 
with the devil, in eternal darkness ? But he did not die, 
and the five months mentioned above had passed away. 
It was a beautiful autumn day in October. He heard 
it mentioned at the dinner table that a forty hours' 
adoration was to take place in his home parish on the 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 7 

first days of November. It meant confession, of 
course; and so he hated to hear of the coming devo- 
tion. His task after dinner was to drive the cattle to 
water about a mile away. The woods along the hill- 
sides through which he passed on that blessed after- 
noon are still distinct in his memory. The oak-trees 
had just begun to shed their leaves; and some of those 
leaves were drifting in the warm autumn wind at his 
feet as he walked along. But most of them were still 
dangling from the branches overhead, richly colored 
in their fading beauty; and the October sun glanced 
sweetly through them where they did not hang too 
thick; and one by one they fell around him to the 
ground as he slowly passed along on his way. The 
grace of God had already been pleading in his bosom 
before he left the table. Louder and louder and 
sweeter and sweeter it became as he walked in the 
checkered shade of those trees that day. It took the 
touch of a divine eloquence to melt that heart of his ; 
but in boundless measure grace was there that day, 
and his heart melted. *'Sweet as remembered kisses 
after death," says the poet, in language that is in- 
imitable, when speaking of what he considers as very 
beautiful and dear and cherished. But what is a re- 
membered kiss of affection compared with the caress of 
God's grace in the soul? It is therefore not strange at 
all that Alan Alfred still has so distinct and so beauti- 
ful a picture in his mind of the time and place in which 
God's grace so visited and blessed his heart. But that 
was not yet the consummation of his change. It was 
only the beginning of his good intention. What an- 



8 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

guish it cost him, and what self-conquest, to bring 
what he so generously resolved upon to a happy issue, 
it is not within my purpose here to explain. I have 
told what I must to make the story of God's grace and 
mercy intelligible; and the rest I choose to pass over 
in silence. 

But here is another strange feature of grace, even 
stranger to me, and more wonderful, than what has 
already been told. Alan Alfred had a vocation to the 
priesthood. He has never had reason to doubt it, un- 
less you will insist on his sins as a reason. In spite of 
all his sins, he had a profoundly religious nature. God 
and eternity and the things of eternity were ever be- 
fore him. He dreamed of a hermit's life for months, 
nay even for years, in his boyhood. He passionately 
longed for the solitude of the desert, to be alone with 
God, and to pass his life in prayer and meditation. He 
sincerely wished that he might never see the world, and 
that he might never know it. A shepherd boy he had 
been from earliest childhood. Already at seven and 
eight he had to pass whole days away from home amid 
the timbered hills and the bleak bluffs to which he 
drove his father's stock before the time of the herd- 
law. He had never known real innocence; but he 
used to cherish, with idolatrous affection, whatever re- 
minded him of his imagined innocence ; that is to say, 
of his earlier and less sinful life. It was for that rea- 
son that he used to repair to certain spots in the wild- 
wood where he remembered to have been on some 
long-gone, happier, and more innocent day; and that 
he would there linger for hours, indulge his melan- 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 9 

choly reflections, and not seldom weep his little heart 
empty of its tears. It was a remnant and a memory 
of this feeling which one day arose in him in later 
years as he was reading a poem and came upon the 
scene in the wilderness where the unhappy hero is rep- 
resented as saying: "Of objects all inanimate I made 
idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, and rocks 
whereby they grew, a paradise, where I did lay me 
down within the shade of waving trees, and dreamed 
uncounted hours." But this strange loneliness of 
heart, so strange in a child so young, and this passion- 
ate yearning, found at least a measurable relief as soon 
as the priesthood arose before him as the load-star of 
his soul, and as a dream sighing for realization. He 
cannot recall that anything earthly or unholy ever 
mingled with his love and desire for that priesthood. 
And that love and desire, pure and ardent and lofty 
beyond belief in one so young, kept up a constant 
vision in his soul, and remained unchanged through 
all the changes of his sinful boyhood. This it is that 
he finds so wonderful, so strange and incompre- 
hensible, in the boundless generosity of God towards 
His thankless and wayward and perverted child. He 
has something else and still more astonishing to report 
about his vocation later on. Here he wants to call at- 
tention to its undoubted genuineness, to God's evident 
choice of the most worthless soul in the world. And 
he does not mean to imagine at all that other souls are 
not as generously dealt with. He feels certain that in 
other ways God is just as wonderful, just as good and 
merciful, in the lives of others as He was in his. He 



10 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

is certain also that he would have lost his vocation very 
soon if God had not made it so beautiful a vision to 
him from the beginning — another proof of the great 
condescending kindness of Providence. 

An obstacle of insurmountable magnitude, as he 
imagined, arose very early before him. He was a dull- 
ard, a hopeless and incurable dullard. It was an er- 
roneous supposition, as he later found out ; but at the 
time he was as firmly convinced of it as he was of his 
own existence. And that conviction did more to turn 
him from his purpose than anything else in the world 
could have done. He gave way to despair, and made 
positive and repeated and persistent efforts to forget 
his dream ; but he could not forget it. Brighter than 
ever the vision arose from that darkness of despair 
into which he had plunged it. The cause of his mis- 
taken notion lay in his teachers. In the first years of 
his school life he was a bright boy and headed his 
class. But he was larger for his age than others ; and 
he attributes the bad judgment of his teachers in his 
case to that fact. But whatever the cause or reason 
may have been, they advanced him beyond his depth, 
and then abused him for his supposed laziness and 
stupidity. His sensitiveness was such as he never 
found, in his thirty years of experience with children, 
in any other child. He cannot remember that his na- 
ture ever hardened or rebelled under the bad treatment 
he received, though he now marvels that it did not ; but 
it sank down helplessly and hopelessly and completely 
into blank despair. He was a dullard. Every mark 
by which the dullard is known was upon him. His 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 11 

teachers and his schoolmates believed it ; and he him- 
self believed it more firmly and more absolutely than 
they. From this delusion he was rescued only after 
he had entered college. Between his grade school and 
college a period of five years intervened. During this 
entire time he harbored his delusion with all the un- 
suspecting firmness of a deep and simple faith. He 
could hardly believe his senses, and he could hardly 
identify himself, when he discovered for the first time, 
as he sat, at the age of nineteen, the timidest and 
youngest, in a class of a hundred and fifty, nearly all 
of them experienced teachers, that his intellect was as 
keen and clear and ample as that of other mortals. 
How had he the courage to enter the doors of that 
normal school? It is a mystery to him still to-day. 
And how had he the heart, in his still younger years, 
to contemplate the vision which floated before him as 
his cherished future vocation? That is a still deeper 
mystery to him now. The only explanation of it is, 
that God in His goodness did not allow him to lose it 
from sight. But why did He not, considering the 
child he was and the life he led ? The following inci- 
dent, painful both to recall and to relate, will greatly 
emphasize this question. 

Alan Alfred had the measles. He was thirteen 
years old at the time. He remembers that one morn- 
ing he suddenly and rapidly grew worse. It was only 
a few minutes till his mind was in a delirium. Then it 
was that the hidden evil of his heart leaped to his lips. 
To the utter astonishment and consternation of his 
mother, he began to blaspheme like a Turk. Nothing 



12 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

could silence him or make him behave with anything 
like decency. And the most alarming and discourag- 
ing part of it all was that the symptoms of approach- 
ing death were suddenly setting in. The poor startled 
and helpless mother called her daughter, and wanted 
to send her to the priest for her boy. But it soon 
seemed as if all would be over in a few moments. "No, 
you need not go, for he is already dying," said the 
mother to her daughter; and the awfulness of those 
words awakened him to consciousness. He faintly 
caught the sense of the last portion of that sentence, 
and it struck terror into his guilty soul. Anguish and 
trepidation followed, for he fully realized what a hope- 
less eternity was before him if, unconverted, he died. 
But the spell was over, over just in time to save him 
from death and damnation; and he rallied quickly 
after it. It is not necessary to make any reflections. 
A life-long reflection tl^e thing has, however, been to 
him. God's mercy be thanked! and God's grace be 
glorified ! 

Let us now pass away from his childhood to his 
young manhood, and see how the grace of God still 
manifestly pursued him — pursued him with all the per- 
sistency of a love that cannot be exhausted. If it were 
not for the fear of vanity, he should here have me tell 
in detail the most charming and consoling portion of 
his soul's history. Suffice it to say that between his 
boyhood and manhood the grace of God was victorious 
in his heart, and celebrated a triumph that is really 
worthy of the name. If he was worse than other chil- 
dren in his childhood, — and he was, — he was also bet- 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION IS 

ter than other young men In the beginning of his 
adolescence ; that is to say, if you do not include into 
the term other young men a few rare exceptions. 
In that period of transition he lived through some 
truly noble and grace-triumphant days. Alas! why 
were there not more of them? Whatever traits of 
character are worth appreciating in him to-day are 
easily traceable to that beautiful and blessed period. 
There was a time in his priesthood, in the earher years 
of it, when he sincerely tried to make his heart an 
empire for Grace to rule over without restriction; but 
even then it was not so docile to that grace's inspira- 
tion as it was in that other, earlier, and more effulgent 
period which lies between his boyhood and his man- 
hood. How his memory loves to revert to it for con- 
solation! And how that consoling memory teaches 
him to value only what is sweet with imperishable 
sweetness, and lovely with imperishable loveliness ! 

But, alas, poor Grace had but a transient triumph ! 
It was soon again resisted. Alan Alfred indeed never 
again returned to the vices of his childhood ; but other 
temptations came, with other attractions; and he al- 
lowed them to lure him on into other infidelities. 
Many of these infidelities were not exactly sins, but 
dangerous with a danger more ruinous than sins. The 
sins at least are known as sins, and no one that loves 
his soul can be contented with them. But there is a 
vanity and a worldliness and a sensuality which resist 
the grace of God and instill a subtle poison into the 
soul; and the poor soul throws itself wide open to 
their influence, incurs their fatal curse, and does not 



14 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

know that anything has happened. Alan Alfred's 
heart was at peace. He did not know the world. He 
did not want to know it He had heard of pomp and 
pleasure; but the words had no attraction for him, 
and not even a meaning. But the day came when his 
peace was disturbed. It was the day when his heart 
opened, and allowed the world with its loud noise to 
come in. There was an invitation to a dance. A dance 
did not mean anything to him. But it did not take 
long, and his deeply sensitive soul had found and 
appropriated the charm that lies in worldly pleasure. 
All the vanities of life, which before had left him cold 
and indifferent, now began to appeal to him, and that 
too with a sweetness which seemed altogether irre- 
sistible. The confusion of thought in his head was 
great, and the noise in his heart was still greater. A 
restlessness which agitated his soul continually and to 
its profoundest depths had supplanted the peace which 
he formerly enjoyed. He was really wretched, but he 
did not know it. Day and night he dreamed of a hap- 
piness which his excited fancy conjured up before him 
like that of another Eden; and day and night his new- 
found restlessness swept over his heart like a blighting 
wind. It may be that he was more susceptible of the 
delusive pleasures of the world than others ; but if he 
was, he has also reason to doubt whether others felt 
the disappointment of them as speedily and as deeply 
as he. Oh, how he would therefore like to warn all 
young folks against a mistake like his! and how he 
would like to plead with parents for their children's 
peace and hope and happiness ! 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 15 

And now I come to the kernel of my argument — to 
the description of his heart's hard conflict with the 
grace of God. Soon after he had been initiated into 
the world's ways, and had tasted its vanities, he posi- 
tively made up his mind to throw his vocation away. 
The vision of other days sometimes haunted him still, 
haunted him in the midst of his noisy pleasures; but 
for a number of years he always made an effort to 
dispel it as soon as it arose ; and he went even so far 
as to offer up prayers to God, that He should take it 
forever away. But, do what he might, the vision al- 
ways returned. An instance or two will sufflce to il- 
lustrate. 

He had been at a dance, one of the most dangerous 
dances he ever attended. He had about him a reserve 
and a bashfulness which often annoyed him, but which 
he now knows to have been a valuable shelter ; and in 
that night, to use a Shakespearean phrase, they "did 
him yeoman's service." He had never encountered 
dangers as he did that night. Temptations of a pe- 
culiar kind, and of which he had not dreamed, came 
over him. But his melancholy mood, if not the grace 
of God, had given him a heavy heart that night, so 
that he was unsusceptible ; and thus his sadness, helped 
by his bashfulness and reserve, placed him within the 
circle of security. He returned, long before the dance 
was over, to his home, and tried to sleep, but could not. 
The music of the dance was in his ears, and the move- 
ments of the dancers in his memory, and the noise of 
it all in his heart; and, as he lay there in the silence of 
his chamber, weary and sick with what he had seen and 



16 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

gone through, his soul began to thirst and pine for 
something nobler and better than those foolish and 
empty vanities. And then the vision which he had so 
often dispelled, dispelled for what now seemed to him 
like the hollo west mockery, again arose before him in 
all its beauty and in all its glory. He did not dare to 
dispel it that night ; and yet he could not gaze upon it 
without confusion and shame. It was more attractive 
and alluring than ever; but he had extinguished his 
hope as he thought, and so he contemplated its inviting 
loveliness with sorrow and despair. The wind was 
rustling in the leaves of the cotton trees in front of his 
window, and moved them gently to and fro in the mild 
moonlight. He gazed for a long time on the waving 
trees, and on the silent moon sending her tender beams 
like a soothing opiate into his chamber; and then he 
wept with sorrow over his broken faith with grace, 
and longed for a hermit's life of solitude in the wilder- 
ness to atone for his vanities. 

On another occasion he attended a more splendid 
and fashionable ball. It was on a summer's evening, 
shortly after he had finished a successful year of teach- 
ing in the public schools. He came to the ball-room 
full of life and joy and joviality. He was received 
there with a warmth of welcome which greatly elated 
him. But a moment, and the tide of pleasure had 
seized him, and bore him away. The dance went on, 
but his joy did not. One thing after another began 
to jar on his sensitive nature, till at last he was weary 
of the whole affair and went out. He retired to a 
little distance, to a nearby hillside; and there he sat 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 17 

down in the dark night, and watched the dance. The 
lamps shone brightly from the windows of the hall; 
and the dancers' figures and their movements could be 
clearly seen in the light. Their voices as they spoke or 
rather merrily shouted to one another, and their laugh- 
ter, and the music, mellowed all by the distance and the 
darkness as it seemed, fell on his ears that night as the 
loneliest sounds he had ever heard. And the sight, in 
spite of its brilliancy, seemed to pour an ocean of sad- 
ness into his sobered mind and heart. Then again it 
was that the vision which he once so loved, and then 
so hated, rose up before him as it did of old He tried 
to turn his eyes away from its fascinating beauty, but 
he could not. "Oh, what a blessedness could that be- 
stow; and, oh, what bitterness comes from the sinful 
world !" He did not actually say those words, but he 
more than heaved their meaning from his heart in 
sighs. Whether he wept that night he does not re- 
member; but he does remember that he pined, with 
something like an infinite thirst, for the lost peace of 
his soul, and for the noble life to which God had called 
him, and from which he had so thanklessly turned 
aside. 

These are but a few feeble illustrations of God's as- 
tonishing prodigality of grace in His unwearying pur- 
suit of a soul that was trying to get away from Him. 
Make a search into your own life, dear reader, and 
find evidence of something similar in your own case. 
The realization of this in eternity will weigh heavier 
than anything else on the aching minds of the lost. It 
will be bitterer than all the bitterness of despair. 



18 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

Strong as the voice of grace was for Alan Alfred 
and deeply as he felt it, the luring passions of his heart 
were still stronger. At least they had the advantage 
of being in possession, that is to say, of holding him 
in captivity already for a number of years. He had 
positively repudiated the grace of his vocation; and he 
felt that it was too late to let it return. At first his 
love of the world, which caused his infidelity to grace, 
was only a sort of boyish delirium; but he had now 
grown into young-manhood, with manly character- 
istics fully developed ; and the future appealed strongly 
to his deeply conscious mind for a plan and a purpose. 
The charming vision of the past was again and again 
deliberately dismissed; and the world was freely al- 
lowed, or rather invited, to make its offers, and to sur- 
round them with as much attractive glory as it pleased. 
The thought of a single or celibate life was abandoned. 
It had fascinated him strongly and long, but it now 
had to go. His impressionable senses and his vivid 
imagination were full of another idea, adorned with a 
dimmer glory but with a more seductive beauty. It 
was only an idea, however; and the realization of it 
he placed, though he had fixed upon it firmly, into an 
indefinite future. He had first to prepare for a career 
in the world; and the world offered him, so at least 
he imagined, a splendid career. The delusion of being 
a dunce, which once made him so hopeless and un- 
happy, was now no longer present to depress him. He 
had found by experience that there was a hidden 
strength in his mind which he had not dreamed of or 
thought possible before. If it was no presumption in 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 19 

others to aim at lucrative and honorable professions in 
the world, it was no presumption in him either to lift 
his ambition equally high. The good God had freed 
him from the imagined obstacle to his cherished voca- 
tion; and, behold, he makes that discovery the reason 
for throwing his vocation away! He went on for a 
while with his determination; but his conscience was 
as troubled as his life was unhappy. He had earned 
money enough to resume his studies. He resumed 
them; and in his spare time he read whatever sad 
pieces he could find in English and in German Htera- 
ture. His Saturdays he would often spend, from 
morning till evening, in a near-by cemetery, sitting 
under the weeping birch trees alone, sometimes think- 
ing and meditating, and sometimes writing poems on 
the fleetingness of life and the instability of human 
things. He was at a school where there were two 
thousand students, young men and young women, full 
of life and full of love for pleasure, many of them 
anxious to secure his friendship ; but a loneliness, and 
a home-sick pining for something he did not know 
what, drew him involuntarily away from social circles, 
and made him an almost complete stranger in that 
great crowd. His timidity and bashfulness, if his feel- 
ing of oppression in the presence of others can be called 
by that name, did something also to bring about this 
isolation. He was in his twenty-first year, strong and 
healthy as but few, and very successful, as he at least 
imagined, in his school work. These last circumstances 
make him marvel now that he could live through that 
year as he did; and the older he grows, the more he 



20 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

feels his indebtedness to Providence for its kind shel- 
ter, and its still kinder direction. One sadness after an- 
other came into his life that year, among other things 
also the death of a dear sister; and through his tears he 
soon saw his vision again; and in the stillness of his 
sorrow the voice of his discarded grace reached into his 
soul once more. But it is not so easy, even for the 
omnipotence of Heaven, to conquer a stubborn will 
that is offering resistance. He had allowed his senses to 
be fascinated by a new dream, and his heart to be occu- 
pied and enthralled by a new ambition. Heart and 
soul and senses all in captivity ! And what a task for 
grace and mercy to recover them ! Chastity is the free- 
dom of the senses from enchantment, and humility is 
the freedom of the heart from ambition. Either is a 
blessing too boundless for exhaustion throughout an 
eternity; and both these blessings the grace of God 
fought for a lifetime to put into Alan Alfred's soul. 
He has reason to doubt whether even now, in his de- 
clining years, he is co-operating with that grace to the 
extent of truly loving those virtues ; but he would like 
to love them truly; and his heart bums with a holy 
desire to make also others love them. 

We left him at school, saddened at every turn by 
some painful occurrence, haunted in his sadness by his 
former vision, but still eagerly pursuing his fancy and 
his ambition. When his school year ended, he made 
definite preparations for the future. He still heard the 
lonely voice in his heart, but he had reduced it to an 
echo. He still saw some transient gleams of glory 
from his haunting vision, but he promptly replaced 



THE HISTORY OF A VOCATION 21 

them with splendors of a different kind. "Man pro- 
poses, but God disposes." Happy for Alan Alfred that 
in his case this saying was verified. God is often quite 
as much in a fortuitous event as in a wonderful 
miracle. To realize that, it is only necessary to have a 
lively faith in His providence. Alan Alfred had se- 
cured a good position. He tarried a trifle, however; 
and his place was forthwith given to another. That 
necessitated a recasting of all his plans. He was con- 
siderably saddened by this disappointment, and a trifle 
more inclined to remember his vocation again. But, as 
usual, he turned the thought aside, and made new ar- 
rangements. Time went on. He was in a new situa- 
tion, among strangers, friendless and home-sick and 
lonely. He did not have many to love; but those 
whom he loved, he loved with all his heart. There was 
a death among his dear ones ; then a separation almost 
as bitter as death ; and then two other separations only 
a little less painful than the one already suffered. 
Other things occurred to make him feel peculiarly for- 
saken and desolate. Then his home was sold, and he 
had a sort of other home in a large city. All this he 
cannot help viewing as providential. When the time 
came to continue his studies, he could attend a Catholic 
college from his new home. He had attended none but 
secular institutions before. The flow of events had 
awakened, again and again, the grace of vocation in 
his soul; and he finally hearkened to its call, though 
reluctantly and with considerable resistance. 

From that time he never again, except in a few 
violent temptations, and then only for brief periods, 



m YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

allowed himself to be lured away from his purpose. 
He went on without interruption to the completion of 
his course, and was ordained to the priesthood at the 
age of twenty-seven. It seemed to him at that time as 
if he was quite advanced in years, and as if he had 
wasted the best, the most precious, and the most beau- 
tiful portion of his life. Alas, if he had wasted only 
that portion which he then mourned over, so he now 
thinks, how happy he should be ! That he had wasted 
was perfectly true ; but that waste sinks into insignifi- 
cance when compared with what he has wasted since. 
I shall pass over in silence all the rest that makes up 
his life's history, because it has nothing to do with my 
subject. Only this I want to add, that he has kept his 
heart young, though he is growing old, by laboring to 
instill freshness and beauty into the lives and souls and 
senses of his children. He still mourns over his earlier 
infidelities, to say nothing of his later ones. He still 
trembles at the deep abyss into which his wayward 
wanderings had led or were about to lead him. By the 
growing convictions of his age he would like to con- 
vince the young, if it is possible to convince them, that 
God's will ought to be their everything, whether ex- 
pressed in a thundering commandment or in the scarce 
audible whisper of a drawing or warning grace. In 
that will of God the treasure of your life is hidden. 
'*0h, that you might seek it there !" thus he sighs in his 
solicitude, though he himself had failed to do so; for 
there, and only there, it can be found. Have not his 
misfortunes, and his salvation from them through 



THE HISTORY OP A VOCATION 23 

God's boundless mercy, somewhat of a right to teach 
you and convince you? 

I have now told you Alan Alfred's story. In his 
troubles I have portrayed your own. You may have 
sinned less, more too perhaps for that matter ; but this 
I know, that there is considerable resemblance between 
you and him. It is for that reason that I hope to have 
awakened your interest. And now to the difficult task 
to which my story has brought me — to the portrayal 
and glorification of self-denial. The essence of self- 
denial for the body is in chastity. The essence of self- 
denial for the soul is in humility. And the amiability 
and beauty of both are imperishable. If you truly 
knew them, you would truly love them. That that is 
so, I shall now proceed to prove to you. 



CHAPTER II 
CHASTITY— ITS NATURE 

CHASTITY, in its wider sense, consists in a purity 
that excludes all disorderly love. In its nar- 
rower and proper sense, it is that virtue which 
regulates our venereal or carnal pleasures. It cohibits or 
restrains the impure passions from all illicit indulgence. 
The sexual instinct is good in itself. It is only the abuse 
of it that is wrong and sinful. It is made by God for 
the continuation of the human race. It is to serve a 
high and noble purpose. Its gratification in serving 
that purpose, that is to say in marriage as instituted by 
God, is therefore perfectly lawful. Chastity restrains 
only from what is unlawful. There is therefore a 
chastity of one kind, and then again of another kind, 
a chastity for those that are single and a chastity for 
those that are married. According to this definition, 
there is no violation of chastity in the lawful gratifica- 
tion of the sexual instinct. And it is this chastity that 
we mean when we speak of chastity as applicable to 
any or every state of life. But often, nay even usually, 
we restrict its meaning into narrower limits. Under- 
stood in this restricted sense, it means a restraining of 
the passions from all sexual pleasure whatsoever. And 
that restraining may again have reference to the pres- 

24 



CHASTITY— ITS NATURE 25 

ent only, or also to the future. To a person in single 
life no voluntary sexual pleasure is permitted. His 
chastity is more perfect than that of the married per- 
son. But he is not obliged to remain in the single 
state. In his future, if he happens to marry, the in- 
dulgence of the sexual pleasure, within the limits pre- 
scribed, will become lawful. So his chastity, even in 
his single state, will not have that perfection about it 
which characterizes the chastity of him who has chosen 
and vowed it for life. It is the vowed or the life-long 
purity which is chastity in its highest and sublimest 
sense — the chastity which the Fathers of the Church 
extol so highly, the chastity which makes angels of 
men, and which is consequently called "the angelic 
virtue." It is this chastity, and the single-life chastity, 
not the married life chastity, which I mean in using 
the term from now on. 

Chastity is the virtue of purity possessed to such an 
extent that a tranquilizing influence has made itself 
felt in the sexual passions. In this it differs from con- 
tinency. Continency consists in a withholding of the 
will from the more violent carnal emotions. It is a 
containing of oneself, as it were, when under the stress 
of violent temptation. And the motive for so doing, 
of course, is a higher one. It is therefore an inferior 
kind of chastity. Chastity supposes a habit formed, 
and an influence brought to bear upon nature, to such 
an extent as to have modified, in a measure at least, 
the stirrings and the risings of the carnal appetite 
itself. The continent person checks himself, and keeps 
himself from sinning ; but he has not carried his work 



26 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

to so profound a depth in his nature as the one who is 
chaste. Continency therefore is a lesser virtue than 
chastity ; but, on the other hand then also, and for the 
same reason, incontinency is a lesser evil than im- 
purity. Continency has to do with the passion when it 
is on; and when the passion has subsided, continency 
is gone as it were. So also is it with incontinency. It 
has to do with passion. It yields to it and consents to 
it. But when the passion has passed — and the passion 
always passes — incontinency is gone also. The incon- 
tinent person is therefore not addicted to his sin as is 
the unchaste one. The unchaste one has a habit to 
remove, if he wants to repent; and so he seldom re- 
pents. The incontinent person has a sin indeed, but 
not a habit, to remove ; and so he does not find repent- 
ance so hard ; and he usually repents. 

There is this peculiarity about chastity, that it has 
a harder warfare to endure than any other virtue. 
That at least is the general rule. Some natures there 
are, it is true, so tame and cold and passionless as to 
feel but very feebly the solicitations of the flesh; but 
their number is exceedingly small. Most of those who 
claim to belong to that class are mere hypocrites, pre- 
tending to be what they are not, and imagining, falsely 
of course, that real virtue consists only in the absolute 
absence of temptation. Concupiscence is fallen na- 
ture's chief inheritance. It sticks to the flesh as color 
does to the paint. It is therefore nearly everybody's 
trouble all through life. It slumbers in the flesh in 
infancy, and needs but an awakening to burst into open 
yiolence. It still slumbers in the flesh when virtue and 



CHASTITY— ITS NATURE 87 

age have reduced it to silence ; and it takes nothing less 
than death to quench it completely. And when the 
flesh is in its prime, in its strength, in its power, con- 
cupiscence is no less so than that flesh whose chief 
characteristic it is. It is therefore everybody's constant 
companion as it were. And the pleasures to which it 
incites us are more seductive than any others we know 
of. Other sinful pleasures may appeal more strongly 
to our spiritual faculties. Honor and power and do- 
minion and glory may give a greater pleasure to the 
mind of pride and ambition. But these are things 
which only the great can possess. Senses, however, 
we all have; and the most ravishing pleasure of the 
senses is sexual excitement or indulgence. Whoever 
wants to live chastely must therefore fight a fierce 
fight, not a single battle, but battle after battle, without 
being able to drive the enemy entirely from his flesh. 
That is the reason why chastity must endure a harder 
warfare than any other virtue. But that is also the 
reason why a victorious chastity is such a wonderful 
thing. Victory over self — is there any victory like it? 
And to make itself secure, to intrench itself as it must, 
what a host of other virtues chastity must practice! 
It must be humble, and modest, and sober, and ab- 
stemious, and prudent, and prayerful; that is to say, 
in other words, it must renounce and mortify itself to 
a deeply painful extent and degree. There is therefore 
a manliness to chastity which it is almost impossible 
sufficiently to admire. The possesser of himself, the 
victor over those impetuous passions before which the 
vast multitudes of the world have fallen and are still 



28 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

falling — is there anything more beautiful, is there 
anybody more honorable and amiable, than he ? 

Chastity, however, is not the greatest of virtues. 
The divine virtues are greater, of course. But even 
among the moral virtues, it is not by any means the 
greatest. For example, it is not so great as fortitude ; 
it is not so great as justice. Nor is even a life-long 
chastity entitled to the greatest merit and glory in 
Heaven. It is quite possible that some who have lived 
in marriage, or even in impurity before their con- 
version, should attain to a greater sanctity on earth, 
and therefore also to a greater glory in Heaven, than 
those who preserved their chastity from beginning to 
end. Nay it is even possible that these married per- 
sons or converted sinners should have a greater in- 
fused chastity than some who were chaste all their 
lives; because the measure of infused chastity may 
depend upon the measure of grace and charity. 

It is on other grounds that chastity is so estimable, 
and that such a peculiar glory surrounds it. It is 
chastity that preserves the soul from everything that is 
sordid and degrading, from pleasures that immerse it 
in matter, and from passions that flood it with filth; 
and therefore it is chastity that gives clearness of 
vision to the mind, and nobleness of affection to the 
heart. It is therefore chastity that makes estimable 
and lovable the far-off but imperishable things of eter- 
nity. It is therefore chastity that rolls back the cur- 
tain from the sky, opens sights to the mind which 
others cannot see, and attractions to the heart which 
others cannot feel. "Blessed are the pure of heart. 



CHASTITY— ITS NATURE «9 

for they shall see God/' It is for this reason that the 
chaste soul is clothed with a charm and a beauty which 
nothing else in the world is able to give. It is the an- 
gelic virtue; that is to say, it makes man an angel, 
angel-like in his intelligence, angel-like in his affection, 
angel-like in his ways, and even angel-like in his ap- 
pearance. It is said of St. Francis of Assisi, that his 
foot never touched the soil of the earth anywhere with- 
out immediately shedding the benediction of Heaven 
upon it. Something of the same kind is true of the 
man of perfect chastity. He is an angel in the flesh ; 
and a strange beauty like that of an angel is in his 
features, and a strange influence like that of an angel 
comes from him, and a strange charm like that of an 
angel surrounds him. 

To appreciate this at its full value, look at the oppo- 
site vice — at impurity. St. Gregory says that of that 
vice are born blindness of intellect, non-consideration, 
inconstancy, precipitancy, love of self, hatred of God, 
and horror or despair of what lies beyond the grave. 
St. Thomas explains these words in an argument 
something like the following : When the lower powers 
of the soul are violently affected by a rush of con- 
cupiscence on its object, the higher powers become con- 
fused and are impeded in their action. This is pre- 
eminently true in case of an indulged passion of im- 
purity. Hence it is that in such a passion the mind 
loses from its grasp the end of its existence, — the good 
and the true, — and is plunged into darkness and afflicted 
with blindness. It has lost its judgment as to what 
is to be done, and so there is non-consideration. It 



80 YOUR HroDEN TREASURE 

has lost its counsel as to the means to be selected, 
and so there is precipitancy. It has lost sight of its 
rule of conduct and of God's precepts, and so there 
is inconstancy. It is all absorbed in the enjoyment 
of its lusts, and so there is nothing but self-love. It 
knows however that God stands in the way of such 
sinning, and so it hates Him — hatred of God. It feels 
that it cannot enjoy its pleasures except in the flesh, 
and so it cares for this earth only — love of the world. 
It wants to be detained in its delights, to which death 
must put an end; and so it has a horror or despair 
of what lies beyond the grave. 

But this description is not to be understood of 
those who fall out of feebleness, and sin only occa- 
sionally. Still less is it to be understood of those 
who, touched by the grace of God, promptly repent 
of their lapses, and try to recover their chastity. It 
is a description of those who voluntarily sink down 
into the quagmire of impurity, who dream only of 
satisfying their animal instincts, and who conse- 
quently hate and abhor whatever is spiritual. From 
such a miserable condition the beautiful virtue of 
chastity preserves us. It keeps pure, not only the 
body, but the mind as well, and the heart also. There- 
fore it is that the chaste man sees and esteems and 
loves what is spiritual, whilst the unchaste man does 
not 



CHAPTER III 
VIRGINITY 

NOW just a word about virginity. Virginity is 
a certain kind of chastity; and that is the 
reason why it should be mentioned in a 
treatise on chastity. Virginity may be considered in 
the physical order as well as in the moral order. We 
are here concerned with the moral order. But, to know 
what it is in that order, a knowledge of what it is in 
the physical order is also necessary. In the physical 
order, virginity consists in that bodily integrity which 
exists so long as the body has not had or experienced 
what is known as consummated sexual pleasure. In 
the moral order, virginity is that virtue which abstains, 
from a supernatural motive, from all such pleasure. 
From this it is evident that it adds something to 
chastity, or that it crowns it with a certain perfection. 
Like an Augustin, or like a Mary Magdalen, or like 
a Mary of Egypt, a person may have sinned against 
chastity, and then through sorrow and repentance have 
found his way back to that virtue, and be chaste once 
more ; but his virginity is gone forever, and no repen- 
tance can recover it. But, to lose virginity in the moral 
order, a sin must be committed. It is impossible to 
lose a virtue except by sin. And to commit a sin, the 

31 



32 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

consent of the will is necessary. Consequently it is 
possible to lose physical virginity without losing it as 
a virtue. When the bodily integrity is gone, physical 
virginity is gone; but the virtue of virginity remains, 
even after the physical destruction of it, if the will has 
not consented to the violation of the bodily integrity. 
Nor is it any prejudice to this moral virginity to have 
felt even the most violent pleasure in the physical ruin 
of it, provided only that the will remained firmly 
opposed to that pleasure, or at least was not capable 
of an act of resistance. A ravished maiden may there- 
fore be a virgin still, and so may be also she who has 
felt the pleasure of completely violated chastity in her 
sleep. But if these two things have taken place, — the 
pleasure of violated bodily integrity and the acquies- 
cence of the will in that pleasure, — then the virtue of 
virginity is not only gone, but also irrecoverable. No 
intensity of contrition or perfection of penance can 
restore it. On the other hand, however, it is not 
irrecoverably lost by mere mental indulgence of 
voluptuous representations and desires, nor even by 
sinful acts of incompleted pleasure, or also of com- 
pleted pleasure in those who are too young to suffer 
bodily violation. In these cases, because the bodily 
integrity is not gone, the virtue of virginity can be 
restored by repentance. 

But here it is of importance to note that virginity, 
to be a virtue, requires more than actual chastity and 
real integrity. A virtue, to be a real virtue, must be 
such that it cannot be taken away except by sin. But 
even a chaste integrity may be given up without sin in 



VIRGINITY 33 

marriage. To make virginity a real virtue, you must 
therefore endow it with stabiHty; and the stability 
must be such that you cannot recede from it without 
sin. But how can such a stability be established if mar- 
riage takes it away and yet is permissible? Only by a 
vow can that be accomplished. It is therefore of vowed 
virginity, and of vowed virginity alone, that theologians 
speak when they speak of it as a virtue. But that virtue, 
thus understood, adds another beauty to the already ex- 
isting beauty of chastity. It is the perfection of chastity. 
It is its crown and its glory. Hence it is that St. 
Augustin says: "We find so wonderfully beautiful 
in the virgins, not this that they are virgins, but this 
that they are virgins dedicated to God." It is need- 
less to explain that by "dedicated to God" he means 
dedicated to God by a vow. True as all this is, it 
must be pointed out at the same time that even this 
beautiful virginity is not the greatest possible sanctity. 
Many converted sinners and many that are married 
m.ay be much holier than some who live in virginity. 
Nay it is even possible that married persons, or still 
more those who once indulged their lusts and are now 
converted, are actually chaster in heart and love 
chastity better than those who are virgins. Chaste 
they may be, but virgins they are not; and their 
greater chastity is also the exception. The presump- 
tion is in favor of the virgins. 



CHAPTER IV 
CELIBACY 

THE Church sets a great value on virginity. 
Celibacy is not virginity, but it is something 
like it. It means freedom from marriage or 
the single state of life. A widower may live in that 
state. A fornicator may live in that state. Many 
who have lost their virginity may live in that state. 
These may live in that state ; but the virgins must live 
in that state. Celibacy is therefore not always vir- 
ginity ; but virginity is always celibacy. More or less 
the two go hand in hand. And if the Church so 
intensely loves the one, it would be strange indeed if 
she did not also love the other. She wants all her 
children to live in chastity, chastity according to their 
state of life; but she commands her clergy to ascend 
a step higher, and to live in celibacy. Some think that 
it is only for economical reasons that she has had made 
this law — ^to keep them unencumbered with domestic 
cares. But this is not true. She sees an excellence 
in the thing itself, and enjoins it on account of that 
excellence. Virginity she cannot enjoin, or at least 
not enforce, because it is known only to the conscience 
of the individual possessor. It does not fall into the 

34 



CELIBACY 85 

forum of her external jurisdiction. But celibacy, the 
next thing to virginity and its sheltering harbor, is 
something she can easily see and determine; and so 
she enjoins it. 

The Church is often criticized for that law, but 
without any good reason, and with considerable in- 
justice. The law she indeed made; but she did 
not place it, like a galling yoke, upon the necks of 
her unwilling subjects. It affects the clergy alone; 
and into the ranks of the clergy no one is compelled, 
or even requested, to enter. It is a duty freely and 
voluntarily assumed. Nor is it an admissible reason 
against that law to say that it is difficult to keep and 
often transgressed. For if such a reason were allowed, 
no law, however good and salutary, could ever exist. 
Every law is at times transgressed. That is an un- 
avoidable evil. The evil must be put up with for the 
sake of the greater good which the law aims at and 
attains. And it is stranger than strange that anyone 
believing in Christ and His teaching, should fail to 
feel the Christian excellence of celibacy as prescribed 
by the Church for her clergy. Does it not give to the 
priest a spirituality and a dignity which nothing else 
could so sensibly bestow? Does it not fit him in a 
peculiar manner to represent Him who is the Virgin- 
bom, to minister at His altar, and to be the dispenser 
of His mysteries ? Was it for nothing that our Savior 
chose a virgin for His mother, a virgin for His foster- 
father, a virgin for His precursor, and a virgin for 
His bosom friend? And if these facts cannot be 
denied, as they cannot, is there anything strange in 



36 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

the supposition that He should have longed for a 
virgin priesthood, or that the Church should have 
tried to fulfill this supposed longing with the law of 
celibacy? Or could our Savior be indifferent to the 
effectiveness of His Priesthood's preaching? Or 
could His Church be supposed to be indifferent to it? 
But who can effectively preach restraint except him 
who restrains himself? Is not the example more 
eloquent than the language, and the hand more con- 
vincing than the tongue? Is the priest not in the 
midst of a world heaving with passion? Is it not his 
duty to still the waves and to calm the storm? But 
w^ho in that world will listen to him if he has fixed 
upon a means of indulging, no matter how lawfully, 
the most insistent and troublesome passion of man? 
And does the Church not know, and does the indi- 
vidual person not realize, that marriage is a giving 
rein and not a curb to the passions? This is no 
attack upon marriage. Marriage is a divine institution. 
It has a noble purpose. But it is not without danger 
to poor weak human nature. It has a certain saving 
liberty about it, true enough; but seldom is its large 
liberty large enough for the passions of man. It, too, 
is then a stumbling-block, as well as celibacy; and 
why then should celibacy not have its right as well as 
marriage? It may be the occasion of falls for a 
few; but it is the cause also of untold good to the 
Church and to the world. Therefore it is that all the 
sins and sacrileges of those whom we weep over as 
fallen priests cannot change the mind of the Church 
on celibacy. There is some evil on the one hand, and 



CELIBACY 87 

it would be strange if there were not; but there is also 
a boundless amount of good on the other. 

In the light of this explanation, the following, I think 
actual occurrence may be favorably interpreted. It is 
told that a certain young man in Holy Orders, but only 
subdeaconship, found it difficult, extremely diffi- 
cult, to observe his vows. He applied to Rome for 
a dispensation, but in vain. He brought his difficulties 
to the notice of very influential men in the Church, 
who pitied him, and tried to help him to a cancella- 
tion of his vows. But the answer they received back 
from Rome was this : Aut sit castus, aut pereat. ''Either 
let him be chaste or let him perish." This seems 
hard for the individual person concerned, but it was 
the only wise and correct answer that could be given. 
Any relaxation in this matter would have been of 
incalculable consequences. Better that one should 
perish than that the whole Church should suffer. And, 
besides, the perishing of that one was not an absolute 
necessity. His salvation may have been difficult, but 
there is no such thing as unavoidable damnation. If 
something like heroism in him was required, that 
requisition cannot be considered as harsh or unreason- 
able, because it was to avoid a far-reaching, standard- 
lowering, and sin-producing precedent. 



CHAPTER V 
OPPOSITION TO CHASTITY 

CHRIST and the world were enemies. He came 
indeed to die for it, but He came also to rebuke 
it. He pilloried its sins with an eloquence that 
angered it — angered it to such an extent that it nailed 
Him to the cross. But the world has not changed 
since the days of Christ. The Christian world has, 
but the heathen world has not; and to that heathen 
world all belong who live its life and espouse its prin- 
ciples. Some of these may give themselves a Chris- 
tian name, to impose on others, or it may be even on 
themselves; but at heart they are heathens. And their 
darling heathen sin is sensuality. It is therefore not 
surprising that the Church's teaching is attacked by 
them. And some of those who attack are very 
talented. They bring to the attack a show of reason- 
ing, a charm of diction, and a beauty of language, 
which are dangerously telling on minds not well pre- 
pared against such an assault. A single example is 
sufficient. The following passage, taken from a 
modern writer, will fully illustrate my meaning. 
"Modesty was made only for those who have no 
beauty. It is an invention of the modern world — the 
child of the Christian contempt for form and matter! 

38 



OPPOSITION TO CHASTITY 39 

. . . O purity, plant of bitterness, born on a blood- 
soaked soil, whose degenerate and sickly blossom ex- 
pands with difficulty in the dank shade of cloisters 
— rose without scent and spiked all around with 
thorns! . . . The ancients knew thee not, O sterile 
flower ! ... In that vigorous and healthy society they 
would have spurned thee under foot disdainfully!" 
No heathen could utter a language more heathenish 
than that. It is the voice of the sexual instinct un- 
bridled and let loose. It is the voice of corrupted 
nature rising up scornfully and rebelliously against 
reason and grace and God. But it is a siren's voice 
nevertheless — insinuating and fascinating and sub- 
duing, because it is so in harmony with passion and 
so softly and so cunningly eloquent at the same time. 
The advocates of the world argue against chastity 
in various ways, and arrive at different degrees in 
their condemnation of it. Some go so far as to find 
fault with the whole social order as it exists at the 
present time. Marriage has no foundation in nature 
to rest on and no reason for its existence. It is an 
artificial thing, a conventionality and nothing more. 
It arose in ignorance and prejudice. By a time- 
honored custom it has come into possession; but that 
possession is very far from being its justification. 
God did not make it, as is evident from the promis- 
cuous mingling of the sexes in the lower animals. It 
has man alone for its originator. It might be left in 
quiet possession if it were harmless ; but it is not harm- 
less. It encroaches upon the sacred liberty of nature; 
and that encroachment is an intolerable tyranny. 



40 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

Something like that is the argumentation of a certain 
class who call themselves philosophers. I have summed 
up their reasoning into a few short pithy sentences. 
For a pure heart it is not difficult to see through its 
sophistry. That marriage has no foundation in nature 
is a gratuitous assumption. That it has not God for 
its author is a downright falsehood. That it should 
not exist because it does not exist among animals, is 
a disgraceful lowering of man to their level. Their 
argument about the sacred liberty of nature con- 
sists entirely in the fine name which they give to the 
excesses of sensual desire; and the tyranny they speak 
of is nothing but an insult angrily flung at orderliness 
and restraint. It is no uncharitableness to say that 
this kind of philosophy is the child of lust much more 
than of reason. Even the splendors into which a 
Rousseau has succeeded to clothe it become a mockery 
when his life's history is known. They are meant to 
dazzle, but only disgust us. His natural children — 
his children of sin — ^he left to the world, to be taken 
care of by charity. Follow the teacher who takes 
away marriage and home and family, under the pre- 
tense of more sexual freedom; but don't ever dream 
after that of finding the happiness of real virtue any 
more. 

To such lengths other enemies of chastity do not go. 
But they hold principles from which a bolder mind 
would probably draw the same conclusions. They 
feel the difficulty of chastity. They magnify that 
difficulty into an impossibility. They believe in the 
infallibility of nature as it were. God made it; and 



OPPOSITION TO CHASTITY 41 

He could not have made it wrong. The leaning of 
the sexes toward each other is universal and natural. 
It should not be resisted, nay it cannot be resisted. 
Man is but a higher species of animal. In his animal 
instincts and functions he is just Hke other animals. 
Why should he not follow his inclinations just as they 
do theirs? In them it is a necessity of nature. In 
man it is no less a necessity, not an absolute necessity, 
but a moral necessity; that is to say, the instinct of 
his nature is so strong that he cannot, usually, resist 
it. And why, in their opinion, should nature not be 
followed? Nature is innocent. Why not return to 
innocent nature? To call the indulgence of innocent 
nature sinful is, in their manner of viewing the ques- 
tion, to pronounce an unintelligible judgment. 

But all this carries conviction only to those who are 
eager to believe their passions, or anxious to excuse 
their sins. They err in calling a difficulty an impos- 
sibility. They err in assuming that man and the 
inferior animals are to move along the same level. 
They err in speaking of human nature as if it meant 
only the very lowest portion of it. They err in saying 
that God made nature what it is. He did not. They 
err in supposing nature innocent. It is in its fallen 
state — sin-corrupted and inclined to sin. Fuller an- 
swers and explanations to the above will be given after 
the next class of objectors to chastity have been men- 
tioned. 

They are those who believe in chastity, but cannot 
understand its excellence. To sin against it is a mere 
weakness. To lose it is not much of a misfortune. 



42 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

It is found, not so much in perfect restraint, as in 
moderated indulgence within the limits of lawful wed- 
lock. And outside that wedlock they can hardly bring 
themselves to believe that it exists. Appreciating it 
so little themselves, they cannot understand that others 
should appreciate it so highly as to keep themselves 
pure amidst temptations for a lifetime. Hence it is 
that they condemn celibacy and virginity as evils ; that 
is to say, that they look upon them as pretenses and 
shams. Hence it is also that they find no beauty in 
the vow of chastity, and no admiration for the single 
state of life. They are not always open enemies of 
the Church. They often acknowledge the good the 
Church does; but they imagine that she does it in 
spite of her faults. They often acknowledge the 
virtuous lives of priests and sisters; but they think 
them virtuous, not on account, but in spite, of their 
vows. And if a life of celestial chastity closes, unless 
there is some other visible greatness about it, they 
feel nothing but pity for its supposed delusion, and 
nothing but wonder at what they call a misdirection 
of its energies. 



CHAPTER VI 

CHASTITY IN THE LIGHT OF REASON AND 
GOD'S LAW 

IN the face of so much opposition it is difficult to 
vindicate chastity as triumphantly as she deserves 
to be vindicated. This is all the truer because of 
the seductive pleasure of impurity, felt so universally, 
and found so irresistible. It is easy to plead for a 
fascinating pleasure. The attention of the world is 
immediately awakened and its interest immediately 
won. But to speak on the other side, for the denial 
of self and the repression of passion, is an infinitely 
more difficult task. It is often discouraging and hope- 
less. 

The sexual instinct is good, just as hunger and 
thirst are good. Hunger and thirst are for the preser- 
vation of life. They call for food and drink to sus- 
tain it when food and drink are necessary. The 
absence of hunger and thirst is not desirable. It 
endangers life and is a sign of disease. But the 
appetite for food and drink must not be abused. It 
must not be indulged to excess and for mere pleasure. 
If it is, there is injury to health; and it thus becomes 
destructive of that very life which it is meant to 
preserve. The same reasoning applies to the sexual 

43 



44 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

appetite. It is made for the preservation of the race. 
It is strong, therefore, in proportion to the importance 
of that preservation. The absence of it is not desir- 
able. It would be disastrous to the race. It would 
indicate a defect, and not a perfection. But to indulge 
that appetite, without sense and without reason, for 
the mere pleasure of the indulgence, is a frightful 
injury, instead of a help, to the preservation of the 
race. 

Human nature has a double element in it — the 
higher and the lower. The higher is not to be in the 
service of the lower, but the lower is to be in the 
service of the higher. In other words, reason should 
rule, and the passions should obey. The passions 
have a purpose. They are not bad in themselves. 
They are bad only in their irregularity and their 
rebellion. If they conform to the dictates of reason, 
they are capable of a magnificent service. They are 
jiot to be extinguished, as some suppose ; but they are 
to be kept in hand and controlled. There is a con- 
siderable energy in them; and, in that way, their 
energy is economized and not wasted. The sexual 
passion is no exception to this rule. It should be 
restrained, but not extinguished. This is true in the 
supernatural as well as in the natural order. Com- 
plete absence of the sexual instinct in a person, unless 
it is the result of conquest after conquest, is a mere 
material purity, and can make no claim to merit 
before God, or to glory in Heaven. It is the over- 
powering of a strong and warm passion by a will 
obedient to the grace of God which constitutes the 



CHASTITY IN THE LIGHT OF REASON 45 

virtue of purity. And if that overpowering has been 
carried to the point of apparent extinction, it is 
chastity in its highest and subhmest sense. It is the 
complete mastery of the strongest passion by the 
strongest will under the influence of the strongest 
grace. And in that case the absence of passion would 
be an accomplishment, not a deficiency; an indication 
of strength, not of weakness; a fullness of character, 
not an emasculation of it. It would be nothing else 
but a firmness of virtue carried into the profoundest 
depth of the soul, and silencing every whisper of 
impurity in its source. This kind of immunity is not 
the immunity of tameness and inertness, but the 
immunity of an almost superhuman steadiness of 
exertion. 

If these two things are kept in mind, — the strength 
of the sexual instinct and the purpose for which it is, 
— there will be no difficulty to imderstand the doctrine 
of the Church about chastity. It seems so severe to 
make a grave disorder, and therefore a mortal sin, as 
the Church does, out of the slightest willful impulse 
of impurity. But when the natural violence of the 
passion is considered, and the vastness and terrible- 
ness of its consequences if not controlled, the reason 
for such severity becomes plain. What the spark is 
to the conflagration which it causes, that the first 
impulse is to the devastating wildness of passion in 
which it results. Self and surroundings are drawn 
into the vortex of ruin by a passion kindled by an 
impulse. But that is not the worst. The race itself 
is threatened with extermination by it. That is the 



46 YOUR HroDEN TREASURE 

reason why, outside of marriage, the slightest willful 
impulse is interdicted, as also every thought and desire, 
under pain of mortal sin. 

It is necessary, however, to tmderstand this doctrine 
correctly, in order not to become disturbed at mere 
shadows, and to make sins where there are none. Full 
and deliberate consent of the will is necessary to make 
a mortal sin. Two kinds of consciousness are required 
to make such a consent. To be conscious, fully con- 
scious, of the carnal emotion, or the impure desire, or 
the voluptuous image, is not sufficient to make a mortal 
sin. It is also necessary to be conscious, fully conscious, 
of the forbiddenness of the thing, or of the obligation 
not to yield. It often happens that the former con- 
sciousness considerably precedes the latter. Here is a 
person who has an impure image in his mind. He 
knows it. He is conscious of it. But he has not yet 
aw^akened to the realization that it is wrong. The sin- 
fulness of keeping that image in his mind has not yet 
struck him. In other words, he has not been attending 
to the morality of his thought, or his responsibility for 
it. He has not yet committed a mortal sin. Then 
suddenly he becomes conscious, not that the image is 
there, because he was conscious of that before, but of 
the wrongness of its presence, and of his duty to put 
it away. Then he sins mortally if he keeps it, but he 
did not do so before. 



CHAPTER VII 

CHASTITY IN THE LIGHT OF REVEALED 
MYSTERIES 

THE above reasons for chastity are founded on 
nature and on the command of God sheltering 
that nature. But chastity assumes an alto- 
gether deeper and sublimer significance, and a more 
celestial and vision-like beauty, when we consider it 
in the light of certain revealed truths and mysteries. 
It is not strange, therefore, that those who have lost 
those truths and mysteries from their faith, or have 
never had them, cannot understand the importance 
which we attach to that virtue, and the appreciation 
which we have for it in its higher forms of perfection. 
They may have a certain secret admiration for it 
which they cannot account for; but the real reason for 
that admiration they have not. It is an admiration 
inherited from their ancestors, or received as a subtle 
influence from those around them — a lingering senti- 
ment in the heart from which the reason for it is gone. 
Our reason for it is the supernatural dignity of man. 
If his natural dignity requires chastity, and is debased 
by its violation; much more will his supernatural 
dignity require that virtue, and be dishonored and dis- 
graced by the loss of it. 

47 



48 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

The natural dignity of man lies in his higher 
faculties well developed and well controlled. In- 
telligence and will are those faculties. They dis- 
tinguish him from all other living creatures on earth. 
They lift him up, infinitely high, above the level of 
mere brutes. But their power of lifting up depends, 
in a large measure, upon their self-development and 
their self-control. Life is a school in which the mind 
and will should be educated and trained. It is a 
preparation for the larger life of eternity, just as child- 
hood is a preparation for the larger life of manhood. 
The schooling of these faculties consists in giving them 
strength and firmness and purpose. The mind should 
find and see and appreciate the beauty of truth, and 
the will should choose it and hold it and defend it 
according to its value. If the mind and the will pre- 
dominate, there is dignity. If the mind and the will 
predominate, the higher has dominion over the lower ; 
and the lower is elevated and ennobled by that do- 
minion. But if the mind and the will have not 
received their proper schooling, if they were not 
educated to truth and order and virtue, it will be cer- 
tain that they will lose their prerogative of rule, and 
fall, more or less completely, under the dominion of 
what is beneath them — under the dominion of the 
senses. And there is no rule of sense so tyrannical 
and slave-making and debasing as the rule of the sense 
of impurity. It is therefore the mastery of self that 
gives manliness, the mastery of self that gives dignity; 
and in chastity that mastery is found almost to per- 
fection. In the giving up of chastity, however, that 



CHASTITY IN LIGHT OF MYSTERIES 49 

mastery is lost, and consequently manliness is lost, 
and the dignity of human nature is lost Chastity, 
then, is the best promoter of human dignity, and 
impurity the surest debaser of it. 

But to us, who are Catholics, there are other con- 
siderations which show the necessity and the beauty 
of chastity. According to our holy faith, our bodies 
are temples of the Holy Ghost. ^'Know you not," 
says St. Paul, "'that your members are the temple of 
the Holy Ghost who is in you?'' In the building of 
Solomon's temple, the respect for that house of God 
was magnified into what seems to us now as an al- 
most unreasonable reverence. The noise of ax and 
hammer was not permitted on the spot ; but the stones, 
trimmed and dressed elsewhere, were laid into their 
places in the building with an inconvenient but re- 
ligious silence. And if that respect was bestowed on 
a temple of stone, the dwelling-place of the Lord, is 
it possible not to see and feel the propriety of keeping 
the tumult of the impure passions out of the sanctuary 
of the flesh, out of the living temple of the Holy 
Ghost? 

Pause and reflect, dear reader. There was a 
time in your life when the Holy Ghost had hushed 
your heart into silence, not into the silence of a voice- 
less sorrow, but into the silence of a speechless joy; 
not into the silence of fatigue and weariness, but 
into the silence of exalted effort and action; not into 
the silence of deadness and apathy, but into the silence 
of peace and tranquillity. There were heavenly holy 
moments in your life, a time of remembered innocence, 



50 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

a time of beautiful repentance, a time of self-forget- 
fulness and of self-sacrifice, a time of boundless ambi- 
tion to do good. Those moments may not be as 
manifold as I think; but somewhere in your past they 
exist; somewhere through your life they are scattered. 
And those were moments when the Holy Ghost made 
His presence felt in your soul, when His grace stirred 
in your bosom, when a wavelet rose a little higher 
than usual from His infinite ocean of love and swept 
over your heart. Look at the heavens above you. 
Look at the vastness of the universe. Look into the 
blue depth of space when the stars are shining at 
midnight, and figure out, if you can, how many 
millions of suns, immensely greater and brighter than 
that which illumines our earth, are rolling around you 
in that space at an incalculable distance. What an 
act of omnipotence to make all this and to keep it in 
existence! But it is not so wonderful as to create a 
soul; and to create a soul is not so wonderful as to 
adorn it with grace. But the Holy Ghost is the 
author, or at least the bestower, of grace. You have 
received it from Him. It is not meant to be enjoyed 
here on earth, and yet you have felt it at times like 
the happiness of another Paradise. O the greatness 
and the sanctity and the goodness of the Holy Ghost ! 
And He comes to dwell, not only in your soul, but 
also in your body. He comes to make a temple of 
your flesh, a sacred sanctuary of your senses as it 
were. And is it any wonder then that you should 
keep those senses pure^ — pure with all the purity of a 
snow-white chastity? Or is it any wonder then that 



CHASTITY IN LIGHT OF MYSTERIES 51 

the noisy turbulence of the animal passions in the 
flesh should be considered as a regrettable accident 
even when not consented to, and as a deeply sinful 
irreverence when voluntary? 

Another reason for the great stress which the 
Church lays upon chastity is found in her tenet about 
the mystical body of Christ. She teaches that her 
children are united into one whole, into one organism 
as it were, into one body; and that that body is the 
body of Jesus Christ. It is not the body of Christ as 
it walked on earth, or as it is glorified in Heaven. 
It is not a mere external union, a mere moral union, 
binding the children of the Church together by a 
common faith. There is a bond more intimate and 
real than that. There is a real something that binds 
them together; and that real something is their real 
Savior Jesus Christ. He is living in them all. They 
all have put Him on as it were. He is their head; 
and they are His members. Their bodies are not His 
in the sense that they were born with Him, or that 
they died with Him, or that they ascended into 
Heaven with Him. But their bodies are His in the 
sense that He mystically amplified and extended Him- 
self in such a way as to gather them up into His own 
and to appropriate them unto Himself. The dignity 
which that adds to our flesh is beyond comprehension ; 
and the great reverence which our chastity pays to that 
dignity is therefore not only appropriate, but due. It 
is for this reason that St. Paul says: "Shall I take 
the members of Christ and make them the members 
of a harlot? God forbid!'' But the indignity is 



52 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

offered not only to Christ when chastity is violated. 
It is offered also to those who make up His mystical 
body, to the saints who are united in Him and by 
Him. 

This deep and strange and puzzling doctrine of the 
Church about the mystical body of Christ becomes 
infinitely more meaningful and immeasurably clearer 
when the light of the Blessed Eucharist is allowed to 
shine upon it. In that mystery Our Savior has found 
a passage for Himself, for Himself with soul and 
body, down into the deepest depth of our nature. In 
it He has found a means to sanctify our flesh by a 
union with His. Oh, how fallen that flesh is from 
its original purity! How rebellious it is to reason 
and to grace! How humiliating it is to the soul 
struggling with its passions! Is it possible that the 
pure flesh of Jesus Christ should want to identify 
itself with that flesh of ours? Who would ever have 
dreamed it if He had not mentioned it to us? "The 
bread which I will give you is my flesh for the life 
of the world." It is not enough for Him to have our 
nature. It is not enough for Him to be near us. He 
wants to lay hold of us. He wants to possess us. 
He wants to identify Himself with us. Physical 
union as well as imion of spirit. "Who eateth my 
flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in 
him." That is the last and deepest reason for that 
real though mystical union of the members of the 
Church among themselves and with their Head. Their 
flesh is now elevated and ennobled by its identification 
with His. It may seem strange that its lusts are not 



CHASTITY m LIGHT OP MYSTERIES 53 

altogether extinguished. But it is not for us to be 
disedified because they are not. It is enough for us 
to know that, by that identification of our flesh with 
His, our bodies are also to share in the prerogatives 
of His. Of His body it was written, ''Thou wilt 
not leave my soul in Hell, nor wilt Thou suffer Thy 
Holy One to see corruption." Corruption our bodies 
may see, but it is not an irreparable or hopeless cor- 
ruption. The bodies in which He lived are entitled 
to a glory like to that of His own. 'Who eateth my 
flesh and drinketh my blood shall have life everlasting, 
and I will raise him up again on the last day." The 
right of being raised up in splendor and glory on the 
last day, our Savior here evidently attributes to the 
reception of Holy Communion. But what shall we 
say of polluting with lustful indulgence a body so 
wonderfully dignified and so w^onderfuUy privileged? 
Or how shall we sufficiently esteem the chastity with 
which such a body ought to be honored and orna- 
mented and kept sacred all through life? 

And here is another consideration. Recall what I 
have said about the greatness of that God who made 
the universe and preserves it. That great God has 
fixed His heart and affections upon human nature, and 
has wedded Himself to it He passed by the angels 
in their beauty and their glory. That passing-by of 
the angels, as is generally supposed, occasioned the 
fall of one-third of their number. He passed them 
by, descended to a nearly infinite depth below them, 
fixed His fond choice on poor helpless human nature, 
and espoused it with an everlasting and omnipotent 



54 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

love. It was a deep condescension on His part; but 
that condescension resulted in a still higher elevation 
on our part. He permitted the infinitely weak to 
draw down the Infinitely Strong, but it was only for 
a moment. The Infinitely Strong soon drew up the 
infinitely weak to the height of His own level. ''He 
sitteth at the right hand of God.'' Even the bright- 
est seraph in Heaven now finds it a privilege and a 
joy to kneel before that sacred humanity of Jesus, 
to adore it and to acknowledge Him as his King. It 
is true that His humanity is not ours; that is to say, 
that He has not united His divine person to every 
human nature in the concrete: but it is nevertheless 
true that He, the Second Adam, represented the race 
and elevated it, just as the first Adam represented 
the race and involved it in his fall. But what a dignity 
does that give to our nature, to our poor helpless flesh 
with its disreputable lusts! Did I say ''helpless"? 
Helpless indeed that flesh is when left to itself, but 
not helpless when helped by the grace of God. It is 
not necessary to draw my conclusion. That the 
dignity of our elevated and honored nature requires 
chastity, and chastity all white and all stainless, is too 
evident not to be seen at the first glance. 

Here is another truth of revelation which will help 
to throw light on the virtue of chastity. The Bible 
tells us, and the Church teaches, that human nature 
fell from a very lofty emiinence to a very profound 
depth when our first parents sinned in Paradise. In 
them, so long as they were innocent, there was no 
such thing as imruly passion. Passions there were, 



CHASTITY IN LIGHT OF MYSTERIES 55 

for the passions are good ; but they slumbered in pro- 
foundest silence, and would have awakened only at 
the bidding of reason. The lower appetites in man 
were in perfect subordination to the higher. Never 
so much as the slightest whisper of lust was heard 
where there was to be tranquillity. That is the reason 
why Adam and Eve were naked, and did not know it. 
So long as God's will was conformed to by man's, so 
long was man's will conformed to by all that was 
beneath it. Man was endowed with the freedom of 
choice. He held everything in his hand — present 
harmony and present happiness, his future behavior 
and his future destiny. If he allowed God His right- 
ful dominion, nature would allow him his rightful 
dominion also. But he rebelled; and nature instantly 
rebelled like himself. His disobedience to God pro- 
duced the disobedience of his passions to himself. 
And lust is the most powerful of all those passions. 
Accepting this truth of revelation, we must admit 
that the passion of impurity arose in sin, that it is 
a remnant of sin, and that it leads into sin. Chastity 
aims at overcoming that condition, and at re-establish- 
ing the order which sin has disturbed. It is evident 
from this explanation that even the involuntary im- 
pulses of passion have something of sin in them. 
They are not attributable as sin to the person in whom 
they occur; but they are the result of original sin, 
and have the tendency to lead into actual sin. The 
ultimate aim of chastity therefore should be, not only 
to avoid falling into actual sin, or into sin at the 
present moment; but also to repress the wave of 



56 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

passion as far as possible for the present, and to 
arrive at last at the point of complete tranquillity. 
That tranquillity, when thus laboriously arrived at, 
is the virtue of chastity in its accomplished beauty — 
a beauty that is seldom won without heroism. But 
that tranquillity is not a virtue at all if it is the gift 
of nature. In that instance it is a defect — a coldness 
and a chilliness which have little or nothing to do 
with virtue. Impurity in that case is not there either, 
and in so far there is chastity; but that is a mere 
material chastity — a chastity which cannot lay claim 
to real and genuine virtue. Virtue is a perfection of 
the will — strength of will to do, and to hold to, what 
is good. That strength of will is either acquired or 
infused by grace. If nature gives it, it is natural 
virtue. But if no strength of will is needed only 
because there is no obstacle to overcome, that sole 
absence of difficulty cannot be called a virtue. But 
if the difficulty has been removed by the will, perhaps 
after repeated and painful efforts, then, and only then, 
the absence of the difficulty is a virtue. Not only is 
it a virtue in that case, but the very crown and per- 
fection of it. It is the dominion of the will so full 
and thorough and complete as to be received into the 
lower appetite without farther question or protest or 
resistance. Oh, how happy and beautiful is the 
chastity that has arrived at that perfection! It is a 
victory over a mighty foe, not only in a series of 
battles, but in the last fight in the last citadel of his 
own country, a victory ending in complete peace and 
tranquillity. Such a victory is a demonstration of 



CHASTITY IN LIGHT OF MYSTERIES 57 

strength and courage and perseverance. But if the 
enemy never had any forces to bring into the field, 
what victory has chastity then gained? Or again, 
what victory can chastity boast of if the enemy has 
died of old age? There will be peace indeed, but it 
will be the peace of the enemy's death, not the peace 
of chastity's victory. Some there are who mistake 
this kind of peace for virtue in themselves. It is a 
dangerous error. Pride and presumption spring from 
it just as weeds do from a congenial and fertile soil. 



CHAPTER VIII 
CHASTITY'S NATURAL CHARMS 

THE foregoing shows that chastity ought to be 
loved from supernatural motives and for its 
supernatural beauty. But the supernatural does 
not exclude the natural, and it is well to dwell also 
on its natural loveliness. The world respects it be- 
cause there is something honorable about it. The 
world esteems it because it is full of an admirable 
self-control. Of that respect and esteem the world is 
perfectly conscious. The world also loves it; but it 
is not conscious of that love. It is impossible not to 
love what is amiable, if the amiableness is seen and 
felt; but the source of that amiableness is often a 
secret to the world. Chastity clothes its possessor with 
a double loveliness — loveliness of character and loveli- 
ness of aspect. The world knows a fine character 
when it comes in contact with it. The world knows 
a beautiful feature when it sees it. But the hidden 
secret of such loveliness it often ignores. This is 
especially true in the case of chastity. The amiable- 
ness which chastity instills into a character, the glory 
which chastity throws over a feature, are so wonder- 
ful that the world is enchanted. But the real cause of 

58 



CHASTITY'S NATURAL CHARMS 59 

the enchantment the world usually cannot detect. A 
beautiful character, even as seen and felt by nature, 
is the most marvelous thing in creation. Everything 
else pales and fades away before its unfolding love- 
liness. But its sweetest charm, its finest finish, and 
its subtlest influence, come from the virtue of chastity. 
So is it also with form and feature. It is often said 
that the eye of a child is a remnant of the beauty of 
Paradise. It has a sweetness in its glance that is all 
its own. And why the eye of a child? Because it 
is not yet defiled with impurity. If chastity comes to 
preserve its innocence, that eye will never lose its fasci- 
nating glance of beauty; on the contrary, it will be- 
come more fascinating as the years go by. Chastity 
gives an innocent freedom to its possessor which is 
very charming. The consciousness of guilt and the 
blush of shame put the fetters of a staggering restraint 
on what otherwise would be the most graceful move- 
ment. All this, of course, is to be understood in a 
relative, not in an absolute sense; that is to say, 
chastity will always make the same person more 
amiable than he would be without it, but it will not 
always make him more amiable than another. 

I wish that I could make the young of both sexes 
realize the full truth of the foregoing paragraph. I 
see them so eager in their ambition to make an im- 
pression, to look their best and to act their best. I 
will not call it pride, though perhaps in many cases 
it is. In its source it is good — the in-born longing of 
the heart for perfection. All my lifetime I noticed 
the frantic efforts of people trying to make as much 



60 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

of themselves as possible. How many young men 
without talent are pining for the impossible dignity 
of a finished education! How many young women 
without beauty, exhausting all their skill in cosmetics, 
are vainly longing to be lovely and loved! There is 
a coveted excellence which they cannot attain. There 
is a coveted beauty which they contemplate with de- 
spair. But perhaps there is a substitute, if not a remedy, 
after all. Did they never hear of the glory of purity? 
Did they never think of the charm of chastity? Alas! 
that charm and that glory they have perhaps delib- 
erately trodden under foot, or contemptuously flung 
away into the winds. Not for the world would I 
have them strive for earthly advantage alone when 
aiming at chastity. But I would like to make them 
feel, and feel keenly and deeply, that God is good 
enough to give the treasures of the earth together 
with the treasures of Heaven. In the case of chastity 
I feel that it is still more true than in the case of other 
virtues, so that we may apply to it the sense of these 
words of our Savior: "Seek ye first the kingdom of 
Heaven and its justice, and the rest shall be added 
unto you." Consider well and take to heart the last 
words: ''and the rest shall be added unto you/' 



CHAPTER IX 

CHASTITY PRAISED BY SCRIPTURE AND 
FATHERS OF THE CHURCH 

HOLY Scripture has many praises for chastity, 
and many threats and reproaches for im- 
purity. See how in the following passage 
from the Book of Wisdom the truth of the above 
chapter is sustained: ''O how beautiful is the chaste 
generation with glory; for the memory thereof is 
immortal ; because it is known both with God and with 
men." And again: "It triumpheth crowned forever, 
winning the reward of undefiled conflicts." "Blessed 
are the pure of heart," says our Savior. And in the 
book of Judith we read: "Thy heart has been 
strengthened, because thou hast loved chastity." These 
other words of the Book of Wisdom are again 
applicable to chastity: "All things came to me to- 
gether with her, and innumerable riches through her 
hands." And the ii8th psalm begins with this praise: 
"Blessed are the undefiled in the way." 

The Fathers of the Church seem never to weary 
when they come to extolling this virtue. Their most 
beautiful passages it is difficult to translate into lan- 
guage that does them justice. Here is a free render- 
ing of St. Ephrem. "O chastity ! thou art the enemy 

61 



02 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

of voluptuousness, of lust, of bodily attractions, and 
of costly ornaments. O chastity! thou art a curb to 
the eyes, and transferrest the whole body from dark- 
ness into light. O chastity ! thou conquerest and rulest 
the flesh and thou contemplatest, with vision intense, 
celestial and invisible things. O chastity ! thou art the 
mother of delight, and among the angels thou hast thy 
dwelling-place. O chastity! thou art pure of heart, 
sweet of voice, and cheerful of countenance. O 
chastity! thou art a gift of God, full of benignity, full 
of modesty, and full of wisdom. O chastity, thou art 
a haven without tempest, full of peace and tran- 
quillity. O chastity! thou art the mother of spiritual 
joys, and the death of sensual sadness. O chastity! 
thou throwest light upon justice, and darkness upon 
the devil; thou hasteneth, with unfaltering steps, to 
the loftiest pinnacle of the sublimest vocation in 
Christ. O chastity! thou dispellest idleness, and in- 
fusest patience. O chastity! thou art a burden so 
light that no waves can ever submerge it; thou art a 
treasure eternal, hidden in the bosom of Christ; and 
whoever possesses it has that which he needs in his 
hour of distress. O chastity! thou art a most beauti- 
ful ornament, one which no beast can touch and no 
fire can consume. O chastity! thy hands hold a 
treasure, because thou art never idle — a treasure which 
no one shall ever regret to possess. O chastity ! thou 
art a spiritual vehicle bearing its occupant to the 
sublimest heights of Heaven. O chastity! thy home 
is among the meek and the humble, and thy end is to 
make truly great men of God. O chastity! thou art 



CHASTITY PRAISED BY SCRIPTURE 63 

in the midst of body and soul like the full-blown 
blossoms of a rose, filling with its fragrance the whole 
home where it dwells. O chastity! thou art the pre- 
cursor of the Holy Ghost, and, when He is present. 
His loveliest hand-maid. O chastity! thou appeasest 
God ; thou bearest in thy hands all His promises ; and 
thou findest grace and favor also with men. The 
saints have pursued thee, O chastity ! with unwearying 
love. St. John, the Evangelist, loved thee; and, lov- 
ing thee, was found worthy to rest on the bosom of 
the Lord of glory. O chastity ! not in the virgins alone 
dost thou celebrate thy triumph, but sometimes also in 
the wedded. That chastity let us love, O blessed 
servants of our Savior ! Let us love it, and thus give 
joy to the Holy Ghost who dwells in us.'' It is 
scarcely possible to add anything to these words with- 
out taking away from their beauty. Yet they do not 
stand alone in the works of the Fathers. Others 
by the score might be added. Let me close my quota- 
tions with a passage from St. Francis de Sales on 
vowed or the highest kind of chastity. He says: 
"What a happiness voluntarily to observe chastity 
even here in this life as the angels and blessed spirits 
observe it in Heaven! This virtue is so noble that 
it renders souls as fair as lilies and as pure as the sun. 
It consecrates the body and procures it the inestimable 
advantage of being entirely dedicated to the Divine 
Majesty, so as to say, 'My heart and flesh have re- 
joiced in the living God.' " 



CHAPTER X 

CHASTITY SOMETIMES HONORED BY 
INCORRUPTION 

IT will not be amiss to call attention now to the 
very singular honor which God sometimes be- 
stows upon the flesh for its chastity. We all 
have heard or read of strange instances of incorrup- 
tion after death. Our bodies are sentenced to cor- 
ruption on account of sin. It is a degradation as deep 
about as can be imagined. It is a punishment for the 
unjust self -exaltation which lay in the disobedience 
of our first parents. They wanted to be Hke God; and 
immediately they sank far beneath their own condi- 
tion of innocence, which was also that of immortality. 
The words of our Savior, that "whoever exalteth him- 
self shall be humbled,'' are verified, sadly and terribly, 
first in death and afterwards in decay. Who does 
not shudder when he looks into the grave, and sees 
some dear one sink into its bosom? But who does not 
shudder still more when that grave is opened again, 
exhaling a sickening odor, and exposing loved features 
in mold and in rottenness? Did you ever seriously 
reflect upon the frightful himiiliation through which 
our flesh is sentenced finally to pass? And did you 
ever fully understand and realize and take to heart 

64 



CHASTITY HONORED BY INCORRUPTION 65 

that the pride of the flesh is its impurity, and that the 
humility of the flesh is its chastity? That pride must 
be humbled; and it is humbled. God is just, inexor- 
ably just. But that humility must also be exalted; 
and it shall be exalted in the future glorious resurrec- 
tion. But in rare and admirable instances of that 
humility, that is to say in rare and admirable in- 
stances of chastity, God exalts and honors the flesh 
even in death, and clothes it with incorruption. The 
history of the saints abounds with examples. The 
skeptical may not be disposed to believe. They may 
feel both pity and scorn for our credulity. But the 
thing looks neither unreasonable nor improbable when 
we remember our Savior's words about the exaltation 
of humility, and when we try to apply them to the 
humility of the flesh — to chastity. It may be interest- 
ing to give an example in detail. Those who do not 
feel like believing need not do so. I will give the 
story, not in full, but the essence of it, as it is told 
by one who had seen all that she recorded, and 
recorded what she saw, immediately after she had 
seen it. 

The case to be related is that of Catherine of 
Bologna. She was a religious, and died in the forty- 
ninth year of her age. Her face, soon after her death, 
assumed a fresh and blooming and beautiful appear- 
ance. The flesh of her body also looked fresh, and 
was as tender as that of a child. Her entire body, 
as also the linens into which it was wrapped, began 
to give off a delightful odor. When she was carried 
on her bier through the church, her face visibly altered 



66 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

and became more beautiful whilst her lips smiled as 
she passed before the altar and the Blessed Sacrament. 
The wondering nuns crowded around her when they 
saw this, and reverentially kissed her hands and her 
feet and her garments. After her grave had been 
prepared, she was laid into it without a coffin; and 
the grave immediately exhaled a celestial odor. Her 
face was still as beautiful and radiant as ever; and 
two of the nuns descended into the grave, and placed 
a few boards over her face in such a way as to shelter 
it from the damp earth that was thrown in. After 
the grave had been closed, the inmates of that convent 
returned to their duties. But day after day, and often 
many times in a day, they visited and revisited that 
fresh-made grave, and always found it to exhale the 
loveliest odor. Not a flower or shrub was near to 
deceive them by its scent. Time went on, and the day 
came when God glorified that grave with a miracle. 
And the miracles soon multiplied. Then the nuns 
began to regret that they placed the body of their 
saint coffinless into the earth. They secured permis- 
sion to take her up and bury her over. The grave 
was opened. It was found that the boards which had 
been placed to shelter her face had fallen In upon it, 
and had pressed it into disfigurement. Three other 
wounds had also been made on her corpse by the 
spades of the unskilled sisters in removing the earth. 
Her body was laid in the gate-way. It again emitted 
the sweetest odor. Her face reassumed its shape, 
and glowed with a life-like freshness and beauty. 
The nails on her fingers were white, and all her limbs 



CHASTITY HONORED BY INCORRUPTION 67 

were in a state of perfect preservation. It was time 
for matin; and when matin was over, the sisters 
carried her into the church, and placed her into the 
presence of the Blessed Sacrament. There immedi- 
ately her face several times became wonderfully- 
radiant, whilst her body loaded the atmosphere far 
around it with the fragrance of flowers. And that 
fragrance soon pervaded the whole church and the 
whole convent, and strangely and mysteriously clung 
to the fingers that had touched her. The convent 
chaplain came, and he had with him a physician. They 
touched the body and examined it. Other priests and 
other physicians did the same as they arrived from 
the city. The bishop declared that he had never seen 
such beauty in death, though he had seen the bodies 
of a great number of saints. The legate allowed the 
body to be placed at the choir window for the people 
to come and behold. For seven days it lay there, and 
repeatedly changed its complexion. Then the bishop 
ordered a monument to be built for her in the form 
of an altar. Into it she was laid amidst great pomp 
and solemnity; and then the monument was closed 
and locked with two keys. On the following Good 
Friday the monument was reopened; and, when the 
silk covering was drawn back from her body, there 
was the same sweet odor and the same incorruption 
as before. Her eyes, however, were sunk in their 
sockets; and that strange circumstance gave sadness 
and pain to the visiting sisters. But on Easter morn- 
ing those eyes were open and large and lustrous ; and 
her whole body seemed to bloom like a blooming 



68 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

rose. After that she was placed into a chapel of her 
own; and three centuries later, so it is asserted by 
those who then saw her, she still looked like a living 
person. Suppose this account to be a true one, — and 
there is no reason why we should not believe it, — does 
it not strike you as if your flesh were worth a great 
effort on your part to keep it chaste? God can ter- 
ribly depress and humble; but He can also wonder- 
fully honor and exalt. 

It seems even that incorruption is sometimes com- 
municated to other decay able objects in case that they 
come into contact with a body privileged with incor- 
ruption. When in the year 1439 the cathedral of 
Florence was enlarged, it became necessary to disturb 
the grave of St. Zenobius. He was resting in a recep- 
tacle under one of the altars of the cathedral. The 
marble lid of his coffin was opened, and there then 
were found, covering his body, the green leaves and 
fresh blossoms of an elm that had grown them a 
thousand and ten years before. The incorrupted body 
of the saint had kept them undecayed by its touch 
throughout the lapse of ten long centuries — another 
proof of the glory of sanctified flesh. Will you not 
try to sanctify yours by a strict chastity? 



CHAPTER XI 
VIRGINITY IN HEAVEN 

CHASTITY of any kind is beautiful ; and chaste 
in a certain way we can all be. But there is a 
chastity which thousands in the world would 
gladly die to have, but can never again have — the 
chastity of virginity. When it is once gone, it is 
gone ; and no pining of a broken heart can ever recall 
it. It is like faded innocence — a flower dead that had 
but one springtime to bloom in. Oh, how happy you 
who still have that special chastity, and are minded 
heroically to keep it till you die! Of you it is written 
in the Book of Revelations, that, if you carry that 
virtue with you into eternity, you shall there sing a 
song which no one except you and your like can sing. 
'T heard a voice . . . and the voice which I heard was 
as the voice of harpers harping on their harps. — And 
they sung as it were a new canticle before the Throne, 
and before the four living creatures and the ancients ; 
and no man could say the canticle but those four 
hundred forty-four thousand, who were purchased 
from the earth. — These were they who were not de- 
filed with women; for they are virgins. These fol- 
low the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were 
purchased from among men, the first fruits to God 

69 



70 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

and to the Lamb." Can any one read those words 
and not feel rejoiced and consoled if he is still a 
virgin? Can any one read them and not feel lonely 
if he has lost his virginity? But let us not be hope- 
less or discouraged, no matter how we have slipped 
and strayed and wandered. Chastity of mind and 
heart is not beyond the reach of upright repentance. 



CHAPTER XII 
EXAMPLES OF CHASTITY 

1ET us now call attention to a few well-known 
examples of chastity. Ansgar was an innocent 
child. But his innocence was of that peculiar 
kind, so often found in the world, which is always 
happy without apparent cause, and always in danger 
without knowing it. His lively nature, his impression- 
able mind, his rare beauty, his gentle disposition and 
his unusual intelligence, made him a great favorite with 
the world. And his heart felt only too quickly the 
insinuating sweetness of her deceitful charms. He 
was still innocent, however; and God saved him by 
sending him a strange and significant dream. He 
thought he was wearily and painfully and dangerously 
climbing a hill by a slippery path. He could hardly 
get ahead, and was constantly in danger of gliding 
into a deep abyss nearby. He lifted up his eyes and 
saw, at some distance, another path all dry and smooth 
and even. And on it he perceived, moving along with 
perfect ease and security, white-robed figures, of 
whom the fairest beckoned to him to come over. He 
understood the dream, loved and sheltered his chastity 
ever after that, and became that saintly bishop who 
brought the light of faith to the Scandinavian People. 

71 



72 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

The saintly Edmund, later archbishop of Canter- 
bury, was studying, in his young manhood, at the 
university of Paris. He was exposed to every danger 
on account of the immorality that surrounded him. 
But already at the age of nine he had vowed perpetual 
virginity to God. By the help and protection of Mary, 
to whom he took his refuge, he kept his chastity un- 
injured. One day, as he tore himself away from a 
crowd of impure companions, he met an amiable boy, 
on whose forehead the name of Jesus was written in 
flaming letters. "Edmund,'' said the child, "I come to 
thee because thou goest away from them." How few 
in the world are so free from the slavery of human 
respect as to do as Edmund did! How few in the 
world therefore also are as pure as he! 

Well known in church history, and famed for its 
singular firmness and courage, is the chastity of 
Nicetas. Nothing affects us so painfully in the fright- 
ful trials of the Christian martyrs as the tortures to 
which their chastity was sometimes subjected. With 
devilish ingenuity their persecutors would often pre- 
pare the way for a last and supreme attack on their 
faith by first violating their purity. Brute force was 
employed in some instances, and in other instances 
recourse was had to seduction. The virtue of Nicetas 
was assailed in either manner. He was tied with 
silken cords and placed into the hands of a beautiful 
woman without virtue. The enchantress immediately 
began the practice of her art, and assailed her help- 
less victim with all the magic of her voluptuous 
charms; but the virginal and saintly youth was equal 



EXAMPLES OF CHASTITY 73 

to the trial. With heroic resolution and firmness he 
bit off his tongue, and blew the stream of blood which 
issued from that wound into her face. Overcome by 
that unexpected defense, but more still by his ad- 
mirable courage, she left him and went away. God 
only knows if shame and sorrow did not fill her heart, 
or if the illustrious chastity of that young martyr 
did not secretly open her soul to faith and repentance. 
But be that as it may, he at last was safe. He had 
won a wonderful and difficult victory, — and took his 
cherished virture with him to the grave. Such a 
sacrifice is not required of you, dear reader, boy or 
girl, or man or woman; but some sort of sacrifice is 
asked of you, and you must make it or perish. 

Sin is the greatest evil in the world, and so nothing 
can ever excuse it. The great cross of the poor priest 
in the confessional, and maybe the cause of his future 
damnation, is the persistent non-conformity of his peni- 
tents to the rules for avoiding sin. They are obstinate ; 
and he, in his mistaken kindness, compromises with 
their obstinacy. You cannot make yourself ridiculous 
in the world. You cannot change its customs. You 
cannot oppose its sweeping tide. You cannot stop the 
freedom with which the sexes now-a-days commingle. 
You cannot abrogate the modern way of company- 
keeping and of courtship. That is the way the poor 
priest's penitents will think and argue. That is the 
way he too will feel when he treats them so leniently. 
And that is the way then in which both he and they 
will forfeit their salvation and be damned. A story 
is told of a yoimg man who had reasoned about as I 



V4 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

did above. He was apparently very religious. He 
was in church every Sunday, and often even at other 
devotions. He went to confession regularly, and was 
a frequent communicant. But he took without scruple 
the freedoms which the world takes; and he scouted, 
angrily and impatiently, the slightest allusion to pos- 
sible guilt in his conduct. All the world did it; and 
all the world couldn't be wrong. Suddenly he be- 
came ill. His Father Confessor was sent for and 
immediately came; but it was already too late. The 
young man was dead. The priest, w^ho had dearly 
loved his penitent, bowed over him in silence and 
prayed. Imagine the horror of all present when the 
corpse unexpectedly raised its head, opened its eyes, 
and exclaimed: ^'Alas! alas! how I deceived my- 
self!" Three times he repeated these words, with a 
voice all unearthly and strange; and then sank back 
on his pillowy dead as before. You may smile with 
incredulity. You may call it a nurse's story. It is 
no sin for you to disbelieve it. But this I must im- 
press upon you — that the doctrine which it illustrates 
is as true as that there is a God in Heaven, and as 
certain as that there is a sun in the sky. Oh, don't 
take any dangerous liberties! and keep the blighting 
breath of poison far from your chastity! 

Now, whatever you may have thought of the fore- 
going story, here is a fact that cannot be called into 
question. At the time when the Holy Land fell into 
the power of the Turkish Sultan, there was, between 
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, a convent of young nuns 
of great beauty. The eye of the Sultan was upon 



EXAMPLES OF CHASTITY 75 

them; and his lustful longings he meant soon to 
satisfy. He sent them word that on a certain day 
he would come to visit them, and that they all should 
be in their festal array at that time. The poor sisters 
knew what that meant, and were in great distress. 
The day for the visit came, and the Sultan was al- 
ready approaching. The superioress called together 
her subjects and said: "You know what dire mis- 
fortune has befallen us. The Sultan intends to rob 
us of our chastity. We are weak and cannot resist 
him. He is already near, and in another moment we 
shall be in his power. Take therefore my advice, and 
do as I do." This said, she drew a knife and plowed 
it up and down through the fair features of her bloom- 
ing face until that face was horrible to behold. Her 
subjects instantly did the same. The Sultan with his 
retinue entered just as they were completing their 
bloody work of defense against him, but instantly 
desisted from his devilish design. He went away, not 
only touched into compassion for their anguish, but 
also filled with admiration for their chastity. 

Another story illustrating the heroism of chastity 
is told us by an authentic historian. Soldiers had 
entered a convent. Some of them were plundering 
the house of its treasures. Others were robbing the 
sisters of their honor. One of the nuns succeeded 
in escaping from her would-be ravisher. She fled be- 
fore him like a hunted and trembling doe. She fled 
in dread of something worse than death. She ran in 
pursuit of something dearer than life. From room 
to room, from apartment to apartment, from story 



76 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

to story, the wild chase continued. Finally she had 
reached the roof, with her pursuer still after her. 
For a moment she gazed down into the deep depth 
below, and then sprang, with a shriek of terror, into 
certain death, and, with chastity still safe, into shel- 
tering eternity. Did she make a mistake? Did she 
set an exorbitant price on her purity? Think what 
you will, but I should count it a glory to kiss her 
remains, and to rest beside them, when my life is over, 
in a grave consecrated by their nearness. 

Perhaps it will not be irreverent, in closing my 
chapter on chastity, to take from profane literature, 
and from the very precincts of vice, an example to 
show how even the world has an instinctive esteem 
for that virtue and an instinctive horror and dislike 
for the sins against it. The example is taken from 
Thomas De Quincey. I have at present no access to 
his writings, or I would give it in his own inimitable 
language. He had run away from home and college 
in his young days, and was roaming, friendless and 
alone, through the streets of the great city of London. 
Exposure and cold and hunger soon reduced him to 
a dangerous condition. A poor girl of the streets, 
whom poverty had pressed into sin, finally befriended 
him. But there was no breach of propriety between 
them. She kept him from freezing to death for a 
while; and then one night, as he sank into a swoon 
from starvation, she sacrificed her all to keep him 
from dying. The gratitude which he felt towards 
her for that was so great that it literally oppressed 
him. It weighed upon his heart for years, because 



EXAMPLES OF CHASTITY 77 

he never found the chance to thank her, much less 
to requite her, for her kindness. Some accident 
separated them that very night, and he never saw her 
again. He tells us how, many years later, when his 
literary fame was established, and when he was living 
in wealth and in comfort, he would go in quest of 
that thankfully remembered child. Day after day he 
would go up and down the streets of England's great 
capital; he would look into thousands and tens of 
thousands of female faces, in the vain hope of finding 
the features of her who had once saved him. But 
this was only the instinctive and spontaneous hope of 
his heart. In reality he wished for the contrary. In 
reality he would have wept with an agony of dis- 
appointment if he had found what he sought. It was 
infinitely sweeter for him, so he tells us, to follow her 
in his thoughts to the darkness of the grave than to 
the lust-haunt of some London brothel. But even to 
that grave he could not go without sadness. Something 
had taken its radiance and its glory away. Still it 
seemed a paradise to him when compared with that 
other abode where she must be if she was not in the 
grave. That is a strange kind of testimony, yet a 
genuine testimony, of the deep and lasting respect 
which great men of the world have for chastity. 



CHAPTER XIII 
IDEAL AND MODEL OF CHASTITY 

1D0 not know whether I have succeeded in my 
attempt to make chastity beautiful to the eyes 
and amiable to the hearts of my readers. Per- 
haps I attempted a task beyond my powers. If so, it 
is an honorable failure — the failure of a lover who 
falters only because of the greatness of his affection, 
and because of the overwhelming loveliness of the 
object in which it is centered. It was the task of the 
painter who wanted to paint the heavens. It was the 
task of the poet who wanted to sing of paradise. Let 
me hope that from my very failure, if I failed, the 
reader will draw a lesson and an inspiration. Let 
him admire that virtue to which my admiration, great 
as it is, could do no justice. Let him love that chastity 
before whose loveliness and glory all the rallied 
powers of my mind sank, as it were, into impotency. 

Let me not forget to add that we have a perfect 
ideal and a perfect model of chastity in the mother 
of our Savior. Instead of developing that subject 
now, let me insert here an extract from an address 
which I gave to my children of Mary, a few years 
ago, on the day of their reception into the sodality. 

Remember that you are children of Mary. Remem- 

78 



IDEAL AND MODEL OF CHASTITY 79 

ber that you owe her the docility and affection of real 
children. Do you know, my dear young ladies, why 
it is that you are so esteemed, so respected, so looked 
tip to, by the world ? It is because Mary has redeemed 
your sex from the debasement and degradation into 
which it had sunk before the dawn of Christianity. 
And do you know what the condition of woman is 
even at the present time in the far East, where Chris- 
tianity has not yet had the chance to lift her up to 
her proper level? In that heathen world, nay even 
in the Mahomedan Empire, where some pretense is 
made to admit Christ as a prophet, woman is esteemed 
and treated as a mere thing of pleasure. So long as 
her face is pretty and her embraces delightful, she 
is in demand. But when her charms are faded, — and 
they soon must fade under such conditions, — she is 
cast aside as a wornout article; and no one cares 
about the pain she must endure before she dies. That 
is the fate of woman to-day where Christ is not 
known. That was the fate of woman everywhere in 
the world before His coming. He it was that re- 
stored her to her proper place in the world by elevat- 
ing His mother. His mother must be and must re- 
main a virgin. Other mothers must take and give 
sensual pleasure in becoming what they are. But not 
so Mary, the mother of our Savior. She was destined 
to something infinitely higher, even here in this life, 
than to take and give sensual pleasure. And ever 
since her pure and beautiful life gave us the Savior, 
womankind has regained its place in the esteem and 
honor of the Christian world. But do you appreciate, 



80 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

my dear young ladies — do you appreciate the place 
which you hold, and which you could never have 
held but for Mary, whose children, as sodalists, you 
have to-day chosen to be? 

I have not the time to dwell on the various points 
that are of importance to you as venerators of Mary. 
I can mention but one or tw^o; and even these I can 
mention but lightly and hurriedly. The first point — 
what shall it be? Perhaps you have guessed it al- 
ready. It is chastity. Chastity, if you take it in the 
more perfect sense, is the complete refraining from 
sexual pleasure. That pleasure can be physical or it 
can be mental. And that pleasure is often a wild and 
delirious pleasure — a pleasure which, after it has once 
been fully indulged, it becomes extremely difficult to 
resist. Oh ! therefore, if you are still pure, cheerfully 
take every pain and annoyance to avoid the first in- 
dulgence; because that first indulgence will reach 
across your entire life with its influence, and darken 
terribly your opening eternity. Oh, if I could only 
make you realize this, as it is realized by me, at whose 
feet so many fallen souls have knelt in their misery, 
attempting so desperately to return to their virtue, 
and yet forever failing in their attempt. My advice 
to you therefore is this: Take the chastity you are 
going to aim at to mean more than my definition of 
it to you a moment ago. Take it to mean, not only 
your actual purity, but also all those precautions with 
which purity is fenced in and sheltered and protected. 
In other words, don't expose your virtue to the slight- 
est risk; don't make little of any danger. 



IDEAL AND MODEL OF CHASTITY 81 

If you are still innocent, I want you to know that 
every community has its seducers, and that you must 
take supreme care not to fall in with them. Be relent- 
lessly severe with your lover when the time for legi- 
timate love-making has arrived. Don't be afraid that 
you will do yourself any harm. The harm you will do 
yourself is by easy surrender. Insist, to the very last 
moment, on preserving every shelter to your chastity. 
Don't be alone with awakening passion. Don't be 
alone — allow me to say it with still more emphasis 
— don't be alone with passion already palpitating. 
Don't make dancing the preferred diversion of your 
life. Don't dress in a way to awaken the senses of 
the other sex. And now, last but not least, don't ever 
aim at the conquest of more hearts than one. If you 
want to get married, there is one for you to conquer, 
but only one, and no more. Anything that aims, 
whether consciously or unconsciously, beyond that, is 
abominable vanity. And no heart full of that vanity 
can hold the affection of Mary, or is likely, on the 
long run, to preserve its chastity. 

Life is short, my dear young ladies; and, whatever 
your beauty now may be, it shall soon lie faded in the 
dust. But faded alone is no calamity. For faded 
beauty, if chaste, there is a day of resurrection and of 
transfiguration. But for the sullied and sin-polluted 
beauty, there is no spring-time in eternity to make it 
bloom again. O Mary! mother of my Savior, keep 
these my children in the love of chastity, and it will 
be easv for me to save their souls. 



CHAPTER XIV 
IMPURITY 

I HAVE now said what I intended to say on chas- 
tity. In the extract just given, warnings against 
impurity, chastity's opponent and enemy, have 
been quite loudly sounded. I want to shelter chastity 
still more by still louder warnings against impurity. 
So I will add a brief chapter, as brief as I can make 
it, on that disagreeable subject. 

The havoc and the unhappiness which the sin of 
impurity has caused in the world, to say nothing of 
eternity, are beyond all calculation. For the fascinat- 
ing pleasure of that sin, kings and rulers have for- 
gotten their own interests, plunged all their subjects 
into misery, and endangered their thrones, their 
crowns, and their kingdoms. For the entrancing 
pleasure of that sin, empires almost as great as the 
earth have been thrown away as if they had no value 
at all. Think of Antony, the once noble Antony, 
sailing after his Egyptian charm at Actium, forgetting 
his own interest and all his future, abandoning his 
army and his empire to the young Octavius, and 
perishing by his own hand, with soft love still on his 
lips, at the feet of his voluptuous paramour. It is 
not necessary to name others. A good portion of the 

82 



IMPURITY 88 

history of the world is made up of such miserable 
examples. And think then too of the many men of 
genius who allowed themselves to be ensnared and 
enslaved by that pleasure. Think of the great Augus- 
tine. A mind like his, perhaps the most wonderful 
that ever was, should have been above the lure of 
sensual pleasure. Yet he tells us himself how sunk 
in impurity he was, and how impossible it seemed to 
free himself from it at the time of his conversion. 
And how many great names in literature are linked 
with indecency ! Writers so gifted as to win the heart 
of the whole world by their writings have prostituted 
their talents by pandering to filthy tastes and by 
glorifying sensuality. And artists by the hundreds, 
some of them of immortal renown, have held up be- 
fore the eyes of the world passion-arousing nudities 
of which they should have been deeply ashamed. And 
if the gifted and the great are thus openly vicious, 
it is scarcely to be expected that the ordinary classes 
should be pure. Their thirst for pleasure is as keen 
as that of the rich and the great. But the pleasure of 
wealth and of power is denied them. The pleasure 
nearest their door, and the one always ready to in- 
dulge them, is the pleasure of lust. Without self- 
denial out of love for our Savior and as taught by 
Him, they naturally fall, sooner or later, usually very 
soon, under the dominion of that pleasure. But that 
pleasure, instead of remaining the beautiful thing it 
appeared at first sight, gradually, but invariably and 
unavoidably, turns into a terrible tyranny. It gains 
a power over the passions from which it often seems 



84 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

impossible to rescue the unhappy victim. Thousands 
upon thousands, who allowed themselves in an evil 
hour to be seduced, fight for a whole lifetime in vain 
against that sin, and must finally make the grave the 
receptacle of their vices no less than of their bones. 
This is especially true of those with unnatural habits. 
On the unnatural a special curse and a special blight 
seem to fall. 

Impurity is often, though not always, a transgres- 
sion against nature. And whenever a natural law 
has been transgressed, a natural punishment is in 
preparation. God's anger can be appeased, but 
offended and insulted nature can not. She goes on, 
inexorably and unmercifully, to call the sinner to 
an account. Her vengeance cannot be stopped. I 
should here push back the curtain, and give the reader 
a glance upon the awful and relentless executions of 
nature. But the scene would be too disgusting. I 
shall only allude to her severity with a word or two. 

I was once called to the sickbed of a person who 
wanted my spiritual help. After I was through with 
him, and wanted to leave, he asked me whether I knew 
what he was dying from. I said "no,'' though I had 
my suspicions. "I am dying from my sins," he then 
said with a voice broken with sobs ; and then he went 
on particularizing and describing what they were. I 
suppose he told me the truth. And he died that night. 

On another occasion I was trying to correct a 
young man by scolding him for his drunken debauch. 
He answered me by protesting that his trouble was 
not drink, but something worse. I asked for an 



IMPURITY 85 

explanation. He then said: ''I have a secret shame- 
ful disease, brought on by my sins of lust. I have 
tried everything in the world for a cure, but without 
success. I hid my disgrace too long; and, when I 
was finally forced to make it known to my physician, 
it was too late. In my despair, I have taken to drink, 
to lose myself from the consciousness of my shame. 
Drunkenness, before that time, was an unknown sin 
to me." 

At another time I told a young man that he was 
dying. At first he did not want to believe it. But 
when I insisted, he said: ''And do you know what 
I am dying from? I am dying from suicide. No- 
body knows it. I do not know whether my physician 
knows it. I have murdered myself, not intentionally, 
but unintentionally; not suddenly and violently, but 
slowly and imperceptibly, by the constant unnatural 
indulgence of my lusts." He uttered these sentences 
with an effort and in a whisper. His voice was al- 
ready broken. He made but a few more feeble efforts 
to speak, and then sank into silence, and then died. 

Whoever of my readers needs the warning of these 
examples has taken it, I am sure. Nature is relentless, 
terribly relentless ; and that is the way nature has been 
made by Almighty God. After this glimpse into the 
realm of retribution by nature, let me close the scene 
by drawing the curtain. There is too much to disgust 
the eye and to sicken the heart if a full view of the 
frightful reality is taken. 

But this physical ruin, terrible as it may seem, which 
the sin of impurity causes, is a mere trifle compared 



86 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

with the moral ruin which it brings to the soul. And 
that moral ruin is a punishment also. Beauty and 
strength and manliness of character are quickly, and 
often irrevocably, lost in a life of sensual pleasure. 
The will becomes feeble and effeminate, and the heart 
cruel and hard. The greatness and earnestness of 
life are lost sight of, and the soul is disgustingly 
occupied with frivolous vanities. It is disagreeable 
to live with such people. Their sensual selfishness 
gives a loathsome appearance and an evil odor to their 
character. An impure life is often called a fast life. 
It consumes the strength of body, soul, and character, 
extremely fast. And the wreck which results is some- 
times loathsome to the last degree. 

I was once called to a woman in her last illness, 
who had a life of shame behind her. She was a public 
character, and had ruined herself by her boundless 
indulgence. The sight was one I shall never forget. 
She was an utter stranger to me, with no claim on 
my services except the claim of charity. She was in 
a dying condition, and I had no time to lose. But 
her frivolousness was so disgusting that I almost 
failed to find language in which to speak to her. 
Whilst I tried to rouse her to repentance she was 
making her toilet. Her mirror and her rouges and 
her powders were lying on her breast, and she tried 
to use them from time to time, though they fell away 
from her enfeebled fingers. I spoke to her of the 
mercy of God, and of the malice of sin, and of the 
need of contrition; and my words seemed to move 
her to a desire to see her face in the mirror. She 



IMPURITY 87 

tried to hold it up, but it glided through her fingers, 
and fell back to her breast. I represented to her the 
sufferings of her Savior dying on the cross for her 
many sins ; and she was so touched by my words that 
she tried to put on her jewelry. I finally left her 
with the vivid impression on my heart of the abomin- 
ableness of vanity and impurity, which had thus 
destroyed all beauty in what would otherwise have 
been an amiable soul. 

It is hardly necessary to call attention to the terrible 
punishments of this sin as portrayed in the Bible. 
There is a strange lake lying on the south-eastern 
border of Palestine, which still seems to give testi- 
mony of the enduring anger and curse of God against 
im.purity. This great body of water, about ten miles 
in width and about fifty miles in length, lies, as it 
were, in a deep pit of the earth, thirteen hundred feet 
below the level of the ocean. From the shores of 
that lake, on the east and the west, steep mountains 
arise; and to the south, as far as the eye can reach, 
there are hills of solid salt. Its waters, stagnant and 
salty and heavy, and having a depth of over thirteen 
hundred feet in places, are bitter and loathsome to 
the taste, painful to the skin when bathed in, and 
irritating to the eye. Great quantities of bitumen arise 
from the bottom to the surface from time to time. 
No vegetation, no sign of life, greets the traveler. 
Everything is desolate and dead. This body of water 
the Bible designates as ''the sea of the wilderness — 
now called the Dead/' Ancient writers speak of it as 
the "Lake of Asphalt.'' To us it is known as the 



88 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

Dead Sea. Some great catastrophe in nature, so 
geologists tell us, sank the strata there so far below 
the level of the ocean. And we know from Holy 
Scripture what the catastrophe was. 

Sodom and Gomorrha, two prosperous and popu- 
lous cities in the days of Abraham, had given them- 
selves up to the sins of the flesh to such an extent that 
not ten innocent could be found among all their in- 
habitants; and God destroyed those cities by raining 
brimstone and fire upon them from heaven. But not 
only were they destroyed. A blot and a blighting 
curse have remained, through all the centuries down 
to the present, upon the site where they stood. 
Whether that rain of fire was also accompanied by 
an upheaval or disturbance of the earth such as to 
form the Dead Sea, is now a disputed question. But 
the fact of deadness and desolation cannot be dis- 
puted. It is there — a silent but terrible testimony of 
God's relentless punishment of the filled-up measure 
of impurity. Of that other, still greater punishment, 
the Deluge, it is not necessary here to speak. But it 
is well to recall it. 

Much else might be touched upon in this chapter; 
but let me pass it all over in silence, and come to a 
hasty conclusion. In dismissing this disagreeable 
topic, I want to instruct the reader's mind and im- 
press his heart with an appropriate illustration. There 
is a strange tradition about the rending of the veil 
of the temple at the time of our Savior's death. Be- 
hind that veil was the holy of holies, that sanctuary 
which was not to be defiled even by the transient 



IMPURITY 89 

glance of the multitude. Of entering that sanctuary 
no common worshiper of the temple was ever so 
bold as to dream. When our Savior died, the veil, 
however, was rent; and thus that sanctuary was laid 
open to the guilty gaze and the contaminating touch 
of the vulgar crowd. And in that moment, so tradi- 
tions tells us, though it is not recorded in the Scrip- 
tures, there were heard the sighs and sobs of weep- 
ing and departing angels — angels weeping over the 
desecration of that which had been so holy, and de- 
parting from that which was now a violated chamber. 
Perhaps, dear reader, you do not believe in this tradi- 
tion. It is not necessary that you do. But at least 
for a moment suppose it to be true, and you will have 
a pretty perfect picture of what is going on in the 
soul of the person who loses his innocence by violat- 
ing his chastity. Not only his soul, but even his body, 
was a sanctuary, a temple of the Holy Ghost. The 
angels made it their abode, and loved it, and were 
happy in it. But alas! something has happened to 
violate that sanctuary. The curtain is rent by the 
rude hand of sinful pleasure, and the turbulent pas- 
sions of the flesh come in and complete the desecra- 
tion. The angels weep. They sigh and sob and 
depart. They loved their abode, but they can dwell 
in it no longer. It was an Eden once, a garden of 
delight; but it is a cesspool now, a haunt of sin, a den 
of the devil. They depart with regret, with sorrow 
and with tears; and, very often too, they depart, as 
they did from the temple, without ever returning. But 
not alone they; God also departs, not with all His 



90 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

graces it is true, but certainly with His sanctifying 
presence. And when God and the angels are gone, 
and the soul is all soiled, and the body disgraced, does 
it not seem as if the poverty, the forsakenness, and 
the loneliness of the lost should already be felt in a 
measure? And that is then the promised happiness 
of the tempter, which millions chase after so wildly, 
and which other millions imagine to enjoy so im- 
mensely. Oh, what a delusion ! Was there ever such 
a pretender, such a liar, such a deceiver, as sinful 
sexual pleasure? A tremor of entrancement, and then 
all its power of granting is exhausted. "All the king- 
doms of the earth and the glory of them'' — that is the 
way it looked as it lay there in the glittering sunlight 
of the morning, when life was just opening, and be- 
fore it was possessed ; but turned into darkness, faded 
into nothing, and followed by disappointment and 
anguish— that is the way how always, in the evening 
of life, this golden vision has ended. Disillusioned too 
late — the misfortune of millions — ^the sure fate of all 
who fail to take warning — God forbid, dear young 
reader, that such a misfortune or such a fate should 
one day be yours ! 



CHAPTER XV 

FAIRNESS OF VIRTUE AND HIDEOUSNESS 
OF VICE STAMPED INTO THE FEATURES 

1ET me close my little treatise on chastity, after 
. having also painted a picture of impurity, with 
what seems to me a striking illustration from 
actual life. I draw the story from memory. I can- 
not verify it, because I do not remember just where 
I picked it up. I hope that I shall not be guilty of 
any inaccuracy. 

Leonardo Da Vinci was a famous Italian painter. 
Even those who have never heard his name must have 
seen his pictures. He painted his celebrated master- 
piece, known as 'The Last Supper,*' on the wall of the 
refectory in a Dominican convent of Milan. Before 
he painted the face of Jesus, he used to saunter, for 
months, about the crowded streets of crowded cities, 
looking into face after face, to find a model. Finally 
he found a young man of such pre-eminent beauty 
and such nobleness of aspect as made him look almost 
like a being from a better world. He secured him 
for his purpose. After he was through with him, 
he dismissed him and went on with his work. Some 
years elapsed before he brought it to a finish. When 
he came to the last figure, he again felt the need of 

91 



92 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

some model. He again sauntered about the streets 
as before. He even visited the haunts of vice and 
crime. He again looked into face after face; but he 
could not find any features as he wanted them — fea- 
tures like those of Judas, w^ith all the hideousness of 
sin v^ritten into them. Finally he found what he 
wanted — a face from which his great traitor could 
be copied with little difficulty and with little change. 
He secured him for his purpose. The man sat for 
Da Vinci as the great painter transferred the horrid- 
ness of his aspect into the face of his Judas. Then 
he arose, and, to the bewildering astonishment of the 
artist, told him that he was the same man who had 
sat for him a certain number of years ago when he 
painted his Jesus. Comment is not necessary. We 
know what sin can do. It transformed the Lucifer 
of heaven into the Satan of hell. 

Again: Away back in my childhood I heard one 
day what had actually happened. A father had a 
virtuously beautiful daughter. She had been the pride 
of his Hfe and the consolation of his age. But one 
day she had mysteriously disappeared. What had be- 
come of her nobody knew. She was simply gone, and 
could not be found. Time went on. A few years 
had passed. Then accidentally and unexpectedly she 
was discovered. The happy news was brought to the 
father, and he nearly died with joy. He hastened with 
all possible speed to embrace his child. But, alas! 
how changed! how changed! His great joy was 
turned into sudden sorrow, and then into wild despair. 
He rushed away from her presence; and, passing him 



FAIRNESS OF VIRTUE 93 

who had lured her away and ruined her, as it was 
supposed, he stabbed him instantly to death. It was 
a mad act, but the altered beauty of his child had 
driven him to it. He had hoped to find his daughter 
as he once knew her, a jewel of chastity; but, instead 
of that, he found her a cesspool of impurity. 



CHAPTER XVI 
HUMILITY— ITS NATURE 

IT is with a feeling of diffidence that I sit down to 
write about humility. It was hard enough to 
write about chastity, and to do the subject any- 
thing like justice; but it seems infinitely harder, at 
least to me, to treat humility in a clear, deserving, 
and satisfactory manner. It is easy enough to say 
some things about it. But it is not at all easy to say 
the right thing, and to say it in the right way. Three 
things are necessary in a writer on this subject; and 
these three things hardly ever combine in the same 
person. These three things are: knowledge, deep in- 
sight into human nature, and the possession of that 
virtue in one's own heart. Knowledge it is not so 
difficult to get. But insight into nature cannot be 
acquired. It is a rare and admirable gift. It is like 
genius, found but here and there in the world. And 
as to the possession of humility in one's own soul, 
that too has its difficulty. It is possible to all. But 
it is a reality only in a few. I mean that more perfect 
humility which carries conviction to the heart, when 
it tells us what it consists in. But I will do what I 
can; and if I fail, I will take the failure in the spirit 
of that humility which I am trying to treat. Possibly 

94 



HUMILITY— ITS NATURE 95 

the gentle reader will forgive me, should I fail, if he 
remembers the reason why I undertake this task. I 
want to make atonement to humility for my trans- 
gressions. I want to secure her pardon for my sins. 
I want to regain her favor, if I lost it, by trying to 
establish her empire in the hearts of others. I want 
to plead her cause courageously in the face of all the 
difficulties of which I am conscious, vividly conscious. 
If I am foolishly going beyond my strength, — if my 
mind fails and my pen falters, — the purity of my in- 
tention, I think, should have some claim on the 
reader's indulgence. But if I succeed let no glory be 
mine, to destroy in me that very virtue in the praise 
of which I am writing; but let all the glory be given 
to God. 

It sounds so conceited to say it, but say it I must: 
I never found a writer on humility who placed his 
subject into that full clear light in which I wanted to 
see it. Some writers did not half say what I wanted 
them to say; and others seemed to me to be making 
things obscure by saying too much. I usually find 
that the writer has a certain class in his mind when 
he writes; and it is difficult in that instance not to 
become one-sided and extremely incomplete. I will 
try to avoid this one-sidedness, if I can, and present 
humility, not indeed in its full loveliness, because I 
am not able for that, but in a loveliness at least that 
is not contracted or distorted or disfigured. 

In ushering in the subject, it is of the utmost im- 
portance to remove, absolutely and relentlessly, those 
harmful errors upon which so many in the world try 



96 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

to build up their virtue. I meet people by the hundreds 
who think that humility consists in deluding them- 
selves into the belief that they are what they are not. 
It is the Devil's business to deceive, not God's. 
Humility is God's, and therefore there must be no 
delusion about it. They think it incumbent on them 
as Christians to create within themselves unreal and 
airy imaginations about their imworthiness. That is 
a very convenient way of treating your unworthiness 
—by making it an imagination. I want you to do 
away with your lies and your fictions. What a Lucifer 
I am, perhaps you think, that I thus want to rob you 
of your supposed humility. But just have a little 
patience. I will in time show you an unworthiness in 
yourself which is bitterly real, so that you can then 
rest your humility on truth. And for the present get 
rid of your fiction. It is hollow and empty, like the 
very pride which you are trying to escape by creating 
it. Do not try to pay a tribute to humility by going 
away from the truth. The result would be an insult 
instead of a tribute. God is truth; and no virtue can 
be anything else. And so far as honors are concerned, 
do not imagine that humility requires the help of a lie 
to keep them at a distance. I will again tell you in 
time how to keep them at a distance with the truth. 
But do not be scandalized in the meantime if I tell 
you that honor and glory are perfectly compatible with 
humility; that is to say, in so far as they are com- 
patible with the truth. 

Let me now proceed to give you as clear and 
accurate a notion of humility as I can. Two points 



HUMILITY— ITS NATURE 97 

of view are necessary to obtain that clear and com- 
plete and accurate notion. From the one view-point 
you see yourself as the recipient of God's gifts and 
graces. From the other view-point you see yourself 
as the possessor of what you have from yourself. 
Every virtue is concerned about some object. To 
regulate and right that object is its function. The 
object of humility is whatever excellence there is in 
one's self. If there is any, it is the business of humility 
to acknowledge it. If there is none, it is the business 
of humility to acknowledge that also. If there is 
excellence of a certain kind and in a certain measure, 
it is the business of humility to determine the kind 
and the degree, and to determine also the kind and 
the amount of credit that is due. Now, when man 
views himself as the recipient of God's gifts and 
graces, he finds that he is a wonderful being, that he 
is God's masterpiece in the universe, that God 
fashioned him after his own likeness, and that he is 
therefore God's image and a reflection of God's 
beauty. He further finds that his nature is elevated, 
that wonderful gifts and graces are inserted into that 
nature — gifts and graces which bestow upon him a 
new and divine life, and make him a sharer even of 
the divine nature in a certain sense. These are excel- 
lences so great and wonderful that no human mind can 
properly appreciate them. They are there, and can- 
not be denied. My reason and my faith unite in tell- 
ing me that they are there, and in telling me how great 
and how wonderful they are. Is humility to come in 
and to contradict my reason and my faith? Is 



98 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

humility to come in and to deny or minimize or dis- 
parage those excellences in myself? That would not 
be truth ; it would not be virtue ; it would not be good. 
It would be a brazen-faced lie and a criminal ingrati- 
tude. Therefore St. James, the Apostle writes: "Let 
the brother of low condition glory in his exaltation.'* 
Therefore the Blessed Virgin, the humblest of all the 
children of men, cried out, in a transport of exulta- 
tion as she saw and appreciated her gifts: ''Behold 
from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 
Because He that is mighty has done great things to 
me." And our Divine Savior Himself, He who put 
Himself before the world as a model of humility to 
be copied, saying: "Learn of me, for I am meek 
and humble of heart" — our Divine Savior Himself 
broke forth into these words in that memorable prayer 
of His: "And now glorify me, O Father, • . . with 
the glory which I had before the world was." St 
Paul also tells us in his epistle to the Ephesians, that 
every man has a right to glory for being created into 
the image and likeness of God, that every Christian 
has a right to glory in his Christian prerogatives, and 
that every soul has a right to glory in her peculiar 
gifts. It is therefore not necessary, nay it is not even 
good, to be willfully blind even to one's natural endow- 
ments, say for example to one's talents or to one's 
intelligence. But the truth of humility requires that 
the glory of all this should be referred to God, who 
is the giver of all that from which this glory comes. 

But now on the other hand, when man views him- 
self as the possessor of what he has from himself, 



HUMILITY— ITS NATURE 99 

he is nothing at all, or rather he Is less than nothing. 
He is what God made him. For his very being he is 
indebted to Another. For his continuation in existence 
he is indebted to Another. For his health and strength 
and beauty he is indebted to Another. For all his 
bodily powers and for all his mental faculties he is 
indebted to Another. Nor is it even possible to 
ascribe his good works to himself. Without his 
existence, which he has from God, where would they 
be? Without God's preservation of life and strength, 
where would they be? Without God's grace, where 
would they be? Without Christ's redemption, which 
makes grace possible, where would they be? Hence 
it is that St. Paul so truly says, that not he who 
planteth is anything, nor he who watereth, but He 
alone who giveth the increase. We are not accustomed 
to hear anything hard or harsh from the mouth of 
Jesus. We are surprised and pained, nay startled and 
terrified, when He unexpectedly says something of 
that kind. And how relieved we feel when we find 
His words to bear a gentler meaning than we thought ! 
In the light of the above consideration, how clear and 
full of truthful meaning are these words of His: 
"When you shall have done all these things that are 
commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants." 
We could hardly accept them in any other sense. How 
has their harshness faded away as we sounded the full 
depth of their meaning! The absolute truth then it 
is, not a fiction nor a dream, that man is nothing at 
all when considered apart from God and his gifts. 
But, really, he is still less than that. He has committed 



100 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

sin; and that he did not get from God, nor can he 
ascribe it to Him. 

I said that humility is concerned with one's own 
excellence. To fix it, to determine it, to weigh it, 
and then to esteem it at its proper value, — that is the 
function of humility. There is an innate pride in us 
all, a pride which comes from original sin; and it is 
in the nature of that pride to overestimate the good 
that is in us, and often also to imagine good in self 
where there is none. Humility dispels those errors, 
and gives us the truth. It compares our excellence 
with that of others, and arrives at an honest and just 
estimate. It takes away all imaginary greatness from 
ourselves, and it cures us of all blindness to the per- 
fection of others. But it goes farther than that. So 
far it has only established a correct and just judg- 
ment. It now proceeds to carry that judgment into 
actual life, into our daily conduct. 

I said that humility makes a comparison of our- 
selves with others. In the excess of your imaginary 
virtue, you perhaps object to that comparison. It 
looks like pride to you. But it is not. You must 
necessarily have some relation to others ; and it is the 
business of humility to determine that relationship 
according to the objective truth of things. Hence 
comparison is necessary. And the comparison must 
be with God on the one hand, and with your neighbor 
on the other. It must be with God, to set you right 
in )^our relationship to Him ; and it must also be with 
your neighbors, to set you right in your relationship 
with them. 



HUMILITY— ITS NATURE 101 

Comparing yourself with God, you will want to give 
to Him, if you are humble, all the credit for all the 
good that is in you. You do not deny the good. You 
do not make a silly attempt to be blind to it. But you 
see the injustice of taking credit to yourself for the 
good that is in you, as if you had it of yourself. Com- 
paring yourself with your neighbor, you will find dif- 
ferent considerations possible. He is just as little as 
you are, if consideration is made of what he has of 
himself. Viewed in that way, you are both nothing; 
and so there is no positive ground for a comparison 
between you. If you compare yourself with your 
neighbor in so far as you both possess the gifts of 
God, you stand there both as mere recipients, and 
are equal. If the gifts in one are greater than in the 
other, preference belongs to the greater gifts. If the 
sins of the one are greater than the sins of the other, 
he is the less unworthy who has committed the smaller 
or the fewer sins. But the greater gifts and the greater 
sins are not always manifest; and so it is a part of 
prudence — and humility is always prudent — to be on 
the safer side, that is to say, to give preference to 
your neighbor. It is possible that there are some secret 
defects in you, and it is possible also that there are 
some secret gifts in him. Humility therefore requires 
that you let the presumption stand in his favor, and 
that you suppose him better than yourself. It is quite 
possible that you err in this, but humility has weighed 
the two possible errors against each other, and has 
found, as it ought to find, that there is much less mis- 
chief, and still less injustice, in the error of underesti- 



102 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

mating self than in the error of underestimating an- 
other. Moreover, there is nothing unreal or fictitious 
in you if you consider yourself in possession only of 
the nothing that you have of yourself, whilst you con- 
sider your neighbor in possession of all that he has of 
his God. Under that aspect, it is easy to give him 
your preference, and easy also to submit yourself to 
him if he is in authority, for by authority he takes 
God's very place in regard to you. I said "easy to 
submit," but perhaps I should have used some other 
word. For a proud disposition no consideration and 
no clearness of duty can make submission very easy. 
Submission is therefore the very essence of humility 
— submission to God for the sake of Himself, and 
submission to man for the sake of God. Many defini- 
tions, more or less accurate, have been given of 
humility. In the light of the foregoing, this definition 
I think will be found correct : Humility is that virtue 
by which man, according to the truth, sees that he 
has nothing of himself, and consequently acknowl- 
edges his unworthiness in such a way as to refer all 
the good that is in him to God, and to submit him- 
self, with all that he is and has, to Him. 



CHAPTER XVII 
EXCELLENCE OF HUMILITY 

IT is not difficult, after these considerations, to see 
the great excellence of the virtue of humility. It 
excels most of the other moral virtues in this, 
that it has a certain universality which they have not. 
It secures the submission of man to the whole moral 
order in general, whilst the other virtues require his 
submission only in part, according to their object. 
For example, chastity subjects him to the sixth com- 
mandment, whilst humility subjects him to all the 
commandments. The humble person finds it impos- 
sible to put himself above the law of God, no matter 
what that law may be, but cheerfully obeys it. He 
therefore flies from every kind of sin, and practices 
every kind of virtue. He has made submission to 
God his aim and his object. And when it comes to 
repentance, he withdraws himself from none of its 
conditions. He confesses his sins with a frankness 
and a fullness and a readiness that are intensely effec- 
tive. They not only forgive, but also add a glory to 
pardon. With humility, he finds all the other virtues. 
With humility, he fast finds his perfection. In a cer- 
tain way, this can also be said of certain other virtues. 
But of humility alone is it true, that it is the death of 

103 



104 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

self-love and of pride. But these, as we all know, are 
terrible enemies to our salvation. They often turn 
our very virtues into vices, as we must learn from the 
prayer of the Pharisee, should we be too blind to learn 
it from a look into ourselves. If therefore humility 
removes them, as it is its function to do, humility 
must be the virtue that leads us into certain and rapid 
perfection. 

That does not mean, however, that every virtue has 
for its motive the motive of humility; that is to say, 
that you practice every other virtue for the same 
reason for which you practice humility. You are 
hum.ble because you are low and vile and unworthy 
in your own eyes ; but that is not the reason why you 
believe, or why you hope, or why you worship, or why 
you are chaste, or why you are charitable. These 
virtues have other motives. But they cannot exist, 
nay they cannot be conceived to exist, without the 
virtue of humility. Something of humility is in them ; 
that is to say, the humility that is in them is not an 
expressed but an implied humility. This then shows 
us the general character of this virtue. The very 
vastness of the field over which it extends, and must 
extend, is a proof of its excellence. 

Keeping this in mind, you will not get a wrong 
impression if I now proceed to tell you that humility 
is neither the greatest nor the most necessary of the 
virtues. It is quite possible even, and I think highly 
probable, that souls by the thousands are saved who 
never in their lifetime elicited an act of humility. 
To elicit such an act is formal or expressed humility. 



EXCELLENCE OF HUMILITY 105 

To elicit no such act, but to be humble nevertheless 
in the practice of other virtues, is implied humility. 
How much of that implied humility lies, for example, 
in faith, in chastity, in the confession of one's sins, 
and so forth, must be plain to everybody. Without 
that implied humility, I do not see how it is possible 
to do anything that is worthy of salvation. But I can 
easily conceive salvation possible without formal 
humility. 

Note what St. John Chrysostom says: 'This is 
humility, that you humble yourself, though you are 
conscious of having done great things. Still God, in 
His ineffable mercy, admits to Himself and receives, 
not only those who thus think humbly of themselves, 
but also those who with a good will confess their sins ; 
and to them He is propitious. But, in order that 
you may realize how well it is not to think loftily of 
yourself, imagine two chariots. Hitch to the one 
justice yoked together with pride, and to the other 
sin yoked together with humility. You will soon 
observe the chariot of sin far in advance of the chariot 
of justice, not on account of any strength in sin, but 
on account of the strength of the humility that is 
linked with it. And you will see the chariot of justice 
lag behind, not on account of the feebleness of justice, 
but on account of the impeding massiveness and 
heaviness of pride. For, in the same way as humility 
overcomes, by its excellence, the heaviness of sin, and 
lifts up the humble sinner even unto Heaven, so also 
is it in the nature of pride to vanquish the up-lifting 
energy of justice, and to hold it back or even to drag 



106 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

it downward. To realize how absolutely true this is, 
think of the Pharisee and the Publican. ... I say 
this, not to induce you to sin, but to persuade you to 
be humble.'' 

These words beautifully illustrate what I have 
said about the excellence of humility and its neces- 
sity, in spite of the concession that it is not the 
greatest virtue. And we read in Holy Scriptures: 
"To whom shall I have respect but to him that is 
poor and little, and of a contrite heart, and that 
trembleth at my words?" And again: ''Humility 
goeth before glory." And again: "Glory shall up- 
hold the humble of spirit." And again: "He that 
hath been humbled shall be in glory ; and he that shall 
bow down his eyes shall be saved." And again: "He 
raiseth up the needy from the dust, and lifteth up the 
poor from the dung-hill ; that he may sit with princes, 
and hold the throne of glory." And again: "The 
greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things 
and thou shalt find grace before God." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

HUMILIATIONS 

A FTER these considerations, we are perhaps con- 
r\ vinced of the excellence of humility, and of its 
beauty, and of its necessity. But conviction 
is one thing, and accomplishment is another. Not 
everyone that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of Heaven, but only he who fulfills the 
necessary conditions. It is not sufficient to know 
humility, to acknowledge it, and to admire it. It is 
also necessary to introduce it into your life. But to 
acquire it, or even only to keep it after God gave it 
to you as a gift, it is necessary for you to choose to 
endure humiliations. You cannot dream yourself into 
humility. You cannot philosophize yourself into 
humility. You cannot admire yourself into humility. 
You must work yourself into humility. And the 
work consists in humiliations. Other work is 
often painful, but none so bitterly painful as 
this. Yet it must be performed if you have your 
heart set on acquiring or keeping humility. And 
why do you find humiliations so painful? or rather 
why do you find them so hateful? Because of the 
innate pride in your heart. It is no uncharitableness 
to accuse you of that pride, because it is the pride of 

107 



108 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

nature, the pride which our first parents left in it by 
k;heir fall. To dethrone that pride is the task of 
humility, and it can be accomplished only through 
humiliations. But who would not want to dethrone 
that pride? Who would not want to rid himself of 
that merciless tyrant ? Who would not want to secure 
himself against such a devastator? Who would not 
want to annihilate that in himself which keeps him in 
such miserable thralldom? But the trouble is that 
that pride has made you so conceited, so unreal, so 
passion-indulged, so slavish, so effeminate, so every- 
thing that is mean and unmanly, that you cannot find 
it in your heart to submit to humiliations for the pur- 
pose even of a glorious victory. And then it is that 
self-delusion begins. Instead of that genuine humility 
which pleases God, and which will ultimately raise 
man from his lowly condition to the loftiest eminence 
of glory, you will have a humility of your own, a 
monstrous caricature, which bears no resemblance to 
the real virtue. It arouses your contempt to hear of 
voluntary self-abasement. It moves your indignation 
to be told to be willingly insignificant. It awakens in 
you a feeling of mingled pity and scorn when you 
read of the saints rejoicing in their humiliations. To 
love yourself last, to prefer others, to bear injuries, 
to despise honors, to love obscurity, and to wish for 
the contempt of the world, — these are things a silly 
and deluded soul may run after. They are not for the 
great of heart and mind and character. They are not 
for you. You want something of real strength and 
beauty. You want something to lift you up and not 



HUMILIATIONS 109 

to press you down — something to make you noble and 
great, not something to make you mean and vile. It 
is not difficult to detect the pride that lurks beneath 
this lofty language. It is not difficult to strip this 
sophistry of its glittering pretensions. The answer 
is short and to the point. Antidotes must have a 
neutralizing effect. They must antagonize the poison 
for which they are administered. The actions of 
pride are self -elevation and self-glorification. The 
actions of humility, therefore, must be self-abasement 
and self-humiliation. The life of pride is to domineer 
over others and to lord it over others. Therefore the 
life of humility must be to give way to others, and to 
submit freely to others. And if the thing which 
humility endures is contemptible, as it often is, it 
must be remembered that it has no power to stain the 
sufferer, but power only to stain him who inflicts the 
suffering. And if it has no power to stain the humble 
sufferer, it has an immense power to ennoble him 
and to lift him up on account of the motive for which 
the sufferer endures it. It is not the giving up of 
your dignity that makes you humble, but the giving 
up of your dignity for a great and noble purpose. "It 
is not the suffering," says St. Augustine, "which 
makes the martyr, but the suffering for the cause of 
religion." Apart from the fortitude of the sufferer, 
there is no virtue whatever in the suffering. So 
is it also with the humiliations that are undergone by 
humility. They have no value apart from their 
motive. If they had, what ridiculous conclusions 
would we have to draw? What humility in that case 



110 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

would we have to ascribe to some whom we now know 
to be filled with all the abominations of pride? How 
many men in the world are foolish, not for Christ as 
Scripture describes humility, but for pleasure? How 
many men in the world give up their dignity for a 
senseless passion? How many men in the world 
throw it away in a drunken debauch? With such 
abominable debasement you are trying to confound 
the humiliations of humility, in order to escape the 
duty of undergoing them. Do not imagine that the 
saints who loved humiliations, and sought them so 
eagerly, had no appreciation of the great gifts of God 
that were in them. Do not imagine that they despised 
those gifts or wanted them despised. They re- 
ferred them, however, to where they belonged, to 
God; and then there remained only their nothingness, 
their weakness, and their sin. For these they wanted 
to be known to the world. For these they wanted to 
be despised by the world. And they wanted this be- 
cause it was the truth, and because they knew it to 
be the truth, and because they loved truth, and be- 
cause they wanted to be treated according to the truth. 
They also saw, what so many of us do not see and 
can hardly believe, that the slightest sins are an 
enormous evil in the eyes of God, and in all reality. 
For even these they wanted to be deeply humiliated. 
And they loved to be humiliated by men, not that 
they loved the sins of their humiliators, for these 
they must intensely disapprove, but because nothing 
could show, better than that, the utter vanity of all 
human greatness before God. 



CHAPTER XIX 
MISTAKEN NOTIONS ABOUT HUMILITY 

BUT here is a secret and very dangerous snare 
into which souls of an imaginary humility 
often fall It is no humility, nay it is an 
abominable weakness, to subject yourself to man, or 
to humiliate yourself before him, in case that that 
man is acting in opposition to God. Humility must 
never smooth the way of sin for wickedness. This 
is to be understood, not only of tyrants who have 
a warfare to wage against God, but also of all other 
superiors who have bad passions to be flattered. It 
is no humility to find out the weaknesses of a good 
land well-meaning superior, and then eagerly to con- 
form to them. Sifted down, it would be found that 
such a submission is the submission of selfishness, 
full of mischief to the poor superior himself, full of 
mischief to his subject, and full of a scandalous 
hypocrisy to those who are compelled to witness it. 
To true humility, especially to one that has borne 
deep and frequent humiliations, there is an intrepidity 
which is little dreamed of by those who have no ex- 
perience of the strength of that virtue. It was the 
intrepidity of the great Baptist still hurling from his 
dungeon his "not lawful'' into the ears of the angered 

111 



112 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

Herod. It was the intrepidity of St. John Chrysos- 
tom teUing his offended empress that her threat of 
banishment had no terrors for him because coming 
from one who had so Httle power to make him un- 
happy. It was the intrepidity of a Pius threatening 
the great Napoleon, the conqueror of the world, with 
punishment for his sins. It was the intrepidity of 
St. Paul withstanding St. Peter to his face in the 
Council of Jerusalem, and telling him that he was 
wrong in trying to curtail the liberty of the Gentile 
converts of the infant Church. This is a rare and 
admirable example of the courage of humility in an 
inferior towards his lawful and acknowledged and 
respected superior. A lesser humility might not have 
sufficed; and the young Church and St. Peter him- 
self found themselves greatly indebted to the fearless 
frankness of St. Paul. 

On the other hand it is well known how deeply 
and how disgracefully the slaves of pride humble 
themselves before man as man. For the hope of a 
little honor or glory, what are they not ready to do? 
There is no baseness to which they will not stoop. 
There is no indignity which they will not silently 
suffer. Every bad passion of the powerful is shame- 
fully flattered for a little favor. And every dis- 
honoring insult is patiently endured for a little worldly 
advantage. This, or something like this, takes place 
in every community and in every corner of the land. 
It is not a vice confined to the courts of kings and 
princes. Wherever the world has a little of its money 
and wealth, of its power and pomp, of its honor and 



MISTAKEN NOTIONS ABOUT HUMILITY 113 

glory, to distribute, there too will be the slaves of 
pride, eagerly humbling themselves to the dust for 
a mere nothing. There is humiliation after humili- 
ation, descent from one indignity to another, from 
one degradation to another still deeper ; and those who 
have passed through it all must usually content them- 
selves in the end with the mere husks of the world's 
treasures. With such an idolatry the votaries of pride 
are compelled to worship at her shrine; and with 
such an empty return must they usually come away 
and be contented. And then these deluded victims, 
veritable slaves to everything that is mean and ig- 
noble, take it into their heads to be scandalized at 
the humiliations of humility. 

But it happens also that the children of the 
Church, nay even that those who aspire to per- 
fection, allow themselves to be infected by this 
loathsome disease. It is sad to contemplate so dis- 
heartening a truth; but it is only by looking a bad 
truth straight into the face that you can change it 
into something more salutary. How many men 
give alms; how many men are charitable; how many 
men are chaste; how many men are religious; how 
many men preach sanctity; how many men write 
books for God and virtue, — ^but only or chiefly 
from a motive of pride or vanity or some other 
worldly advantage. And so also are there, even 
in religion, humiliations that look like humility 
but are not, and indulgences of all kinds of pride 
for a holy cause or for the purpose of main- 
taining one's dignity. The subject obeys, and fawns. 



114 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

and flatters, from an abominable motive; and the 
superior uses, or rather abuses, his authority from a 
motive still more abominable. That these things are 
it is impossible to deny ; and it would be the height of 
folly to try to avoid their harm by shutting one's eyes. 
It is no condemnation of good works to try to purify 
them from their pride, and to make them beautifully 
humble. And it is no reflection upon obedience and 
authority to try to render them a similar service. 

And now, dear reader, look out into the world as 
you see it all around you; look back into your life 
as it lies in your memory; look forward into your 
future as it opens before you; look, and see if it is 
possible to live through a single day without humili- 
ations of some kind or another. You cannot avoid 
them. You cannot get away from them. But it lies 
in your power to do either of these two things: to 
fill them with all the consoling sweetness of humility, 
or to let them be filled with all the intolerable bitter- 
ness of pride. If you take them as coming from the 
hand of God and endure them for God's sake alone, 
they will ennoble and exalt you; but if you take them 
as coming from the hand of man and endure them 
for man's sake alone, they will vilify and degrade 
you. The former is humility — a beautiful virtue; the 
latter, abjectness — an abominable vice. Nor is it to 
be overlooked that this loathsome vice usually bears 
within itself a considerable admixture of hypocrisy. 
Detestation, utter detestation, is its only due. 



CHAPTER XX 
EFFECTS OF HUMILITY 

1ET us now turn to some of the effects of humility. 
The humble man sees and understands and 
acknowledges his nothingness before God. He 
tries to make this a truth and a reality to himself, 
not only a dream or a theory. He takes to heart the 
words of Isaias: "All nations are before Him [God] 
as if they had no being at all, and are counted to 
Him as nothing and vanity." Without affectation, 
therefore, and without a shadow of untruthfulness 
in his assumption, he considers himself as unworthy 
of God's gifts, and as utterly unable, from what he 
is and has of himself, to do anything that is good. 
Amid all the magnificence of the most splendid virtues, 
he is never elated, and never ascribes any of their 
glory to himself. He always remembers his naked- 
ness and his poverty, and makes complete and unre- 
served acknowledgment for the good that is in him 
to the Giver of his graces and to the Creator and 
Preserver of his nature. He keeps the words of 
St. Paul in their full meaning ever before him : '*Not 
that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, 
as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.'' 
And the farther result then is that you cannot turn 

115 



116 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

his head with any kind of success, nor disturb his 
heart, if he has done his duty, with any kind of failure. 
The success is due, not to himself, but to Him who 
gave the wherewith — to God. And neither is the 
failure due to himself, because he has done what he 
could; and so he is not disturbed. He expected it, 
and had to expect it, if he was left to his own strength 
and to his own rescources. Nor is his failure a cause 
of disturbance to him so far as God is concerned, 
in so far as God has not received the glory of his 
intended success; because the event shows that God 
did not care for that success, or He would have helped 
him to it; and God's will is everything to him. A 
wonderful peace and tranquillity, therefore, accom- 
pany all his undertakings and all his efforts. And he has 
courage enough to attempt anything, no matter how 
great or how difficult it may be, if he is once con- 
vinced that it is God's will. This may look a little 
like pride to you, but it is not. The fact is, that 
if he shrank from the undertaking, either on account 
of the magnitude or the difficulty of the thing, he 
would be proud instead of humble. He would be 
proud, because his shrinking from the task would 
arise from imagining either that his own strength 
would have to suffice, or that even God's help when 
joined to his efforts would not be sufficient. It would 
be making either too much of self or too little of 
God. That is not the way of humility. Humility 
says with St. Paul: "I know how to be brought low, 
and I know how to abound." "I can do all things 
in Him who strengtheneth me." But it is necessary 



EFFECTS OF HUMILITY 117 

for humility to know, before it ventures to undertake 
what is unusual and great, that it is God's will. 
Otherwise the attempt is presumption. 

A further effect of humility is, that its possessor 
permits honor to himself, or even goes in quest of 
it and insists on it, if it is God's will and the rule 
of right reason. Therefore it is that true humility 
in father and mother requires honor and obedience 
and reverence from the child. It is God's will. It is 
right reason. It is a just care for the conservation of 
God's rights in His representatives. The same may 
be said of all other superiors. But wherever God 
and good sense do not require it, honor is carefully 
and anxiously to be shunned by whoever is humble. 
And by whoever I mean superiors even more than 
inferiors. Inferiors are told at every turn that they 
should be humble, and they should be of course; but 
let superiors also remember the words of their Savior: 
"He that is the greater among you, let him become 
as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that 
serveth. For which is greater, he that sitteth at 
table, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at 
table? But I am in the midst of you as he that 
serveth. I have given you an example, that as I 
have done to you, so you do also. Amen, amen I 
say to you: The servant is not greater than his lord." 
The more, therefore, a person is raised above others 
in dignity or rank or authority, the more should he 
endeavor to be truly and profoundly humble. He 
should remember how difficult it is amidst honors 
and praises not to become tainted with pride. He 



118 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

should regard it as a strict duty of prudence, all 
the greater in the great, to take no pleasure in the 
transient honors of this world, and to fly away from 
them as fast and as far as he can, unless it is the 
evident will of God that he should not. 

Another effect of humility is the preference of 
others to self. The humble person looks at himself 
in all that naked poverty which is his own when God 
is not there to enrich him, whilst he looks at others 
in all that splendid wealth of gifts and graces with 
which God has clothed them. Therefore it is then 
that he gives preference to them in all things. They 
may have all the influence. They may have all the 
prestige. They may have all the power. They may 
have all the authority. They may have all the honor 
and praise and glory. He is eager to withdraw him- 
self from notice. He is happy to hide himself in 
obscurity. He is anxious to be passed by and neg- 
lected and forgotten. And he is sincere, profoundly 
sincere, in all this. So many there are who do these 
things, but do them with a secret desire, whether 
conscious or unconscious, to be admired for doing 
them. That is nothing but a refined sort of pride. 
It is a dangerous pride, all the more dangerous be- 
cause it simulates humility, and often ends in a hope- 
less self-deception and an incurable blindness. I said 
that the humble soul is profoundly sincere in re- 
linquishing honors to others and in seeking neglect 
for herself. But just because she is sincere, and 
because her sincerity rests upon truth, she does this 
in a sensible way. She does not go out of her way 



EFFECTS OF HUMILITY 119 

to be humble. She makes no demonstration of her 
humiUty. She does nothing singular. She does 
nothing ridiculous. She does nothing absurd. And 
if the saints have sometimes done such things to hu- 
miliate themselves, it is for us respectfully to ascribe 
that either to a particular inspiration, which we should 
not presume to have; or to an honest error of judg- 
ment, which we should not attempt to imitate. In 
the life of our Savior we find humiliations enough, 
but none to which He descended in an unbecoming 
manner. In all His eventful career, not a single 
instance is found in which He made Himself foolish, 
or acted in a manner not fully to be approved by 
good sense and good reason. And he invited us to 
copy our humility from Himself, not from others. 
"Learn of me,'' He says, "for I am meek and humble 
of heart." And it is not necessary either to go in 
quest of humiliations. There are enough of them, 
without our seeking for special ones. And those 
special ones, it should be remembered, are not half 
as suited and as apt to advance us in virtue as are 
those that come to us unbidden and unawares, sent 
cither directly or indirectly by Divine Providence. 
Hence the word of Holy Scripture: "Be you humbled 
therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He 
may exalt you in the time of visitation.'' 

To an unthinking mind it appears at first sight as if 
humility were opposed to magnanimity. But a deeper 
study shows that it is not. Magnanimity consists 
in lifting our desire to great and lofty things. Hu- 
mility consists in restraining and curbing that desire. 



120 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

In each case, the object to which the eyes are turned 
is the same — lofty things; but magnanimity aspires 
to them, whilst humiHty renounces them. But each 
acts under a different aspect and from a different 
motive. Magnanimity looks at the great gifts in man 
as coming from God, and wants to use them for a 
great purpose, in order to reflect glory upon the Giver. 
Humility looks at the great gifts in man as not be- 
longing to him because they do not come from him, 
and shrinks from them in so far as they are apt to 
reflect glory on him as the man who has no right 
to it. The supernatural virtue of magnanimity, of 
which there is question here, is not only not opposed 
to humility, but even very much resembles it. It 
consists in a quick promptness to perform great acts 
worthy of the approval of God. It knows that God 
alone can estimate the value of a human act. Hence 
it cares only for His approval, or at least esteems 
quite lightly the honor that comes from man for its 
deeds. Hence it is that the magnanimous person is 
not elated by honors. He considers them as beneath 
him, not as above him. He considers them as less 
than what he is worthy of. He is all God's, with 
God's gifts and God's graces operating in him; and 
so he aims at something high, at something that God 
will approve and praise, and cares but little for the un- 
certain judgments of men. But that is exactly what 
humility does, as I have shown above, when it is face 
to face with a great task to be performed, and knows 
that it is the will of God that it should perform it. 



CHAPTER XXI 
SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 

AGAINST this humility, but more still against 
magnanimity, is the presumption which con- 
sists in attempting what evidently lies beyond 
your strength. This presumption, which is not the 
presumption of an excessive hope in God's mercy, is 
nothing but a guilty rashness, born either of a cul- 
pable ignorance or of an overweening pride. In 
commiting it, you are either guiltily ignorant of your 
want of strength, or you are proudly supposing a 
strength which you do not possess. See how our 
Divine Savior condemns this presumption in the fol- 
lowing words : *'Which of you having a mind to build 
a tower, doth not first sit down, and reckon the 
charges that are necessary, whether he have where- 
withal to finish it; lest, after he hath laid the foun- 
dation, and is not able to finish it, all that see it 
begin to mock him, saying: This man began to build, 
and was not able to finish." This presumption was 
the sin of St. Peter when he said to his master: "Lord, 
I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to 
death.'' How did this want of humility precipitate 
him into so deep and so shameful a fall! Prison 
and death he was ready to endure for Jesus, and an 

121 



122 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

hour later he could not endure for Him the silly re- 
proach of a poor insignificant servant maid. This same 
want of humility is found in so many who presumpt- 
uously attempt the great things which the great saints 
have done, whilst they themselves are still in a state 
of palpable imperfection. It is not a rare thing to 
find souls laboring under this mistake. It is a sin 
against humility; and yet, strange to say, in the very 
practice of humility that sin is frequently committed. 
How many souls, for example, still so weak as to 
fall before the petty humiliaations which must come 
to all, presumptuously want to take upon themselves 
the almost unendurable humiliations that come from 
pride and tyranny and injustice. It is like the aspi- 
ration to martyrdom in a poor weakling who has not 
yet learned to renounce his sensualities. Humiliations 
are good. Too few in the world believe in them. 
Too few in the world love them. But they must be 
chosen with considerable prudence and discretion. 
The surest way for you is not to choose them at all, 
but to let the Lord choose them for you. By attempt- 
ing too much, you begin with the sin of presumption; 
and that one sin will have an endless train of other 
sins following it in its wake. And just as great a 
mistake is it, only infinitely more inexcusable, to load 
humiliations upon others under the pretense of help- 
ing them on to perfection. Fewer souls have been 
helped to Heaven than thrust into hell by that 
method. I doubt very much whether any person in 
the world was ever called upon by God to inflict a 
humiliation. I mean here, not that innocent humili- 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 1«S 

ation which proceeds from kindness and can have a 
good interpretation, but that ugHer humiHation which 
is bitter only with the bitterness of uncharity. But 
perfectly compatible with this orderliness in humility 
which I so much insist upon, and perfectly in harmony 
with the humble and truthful measuring of one's 
strength, is the most burning desire for perfection, 
and the most strenuous struggle to attain it. In 
stating a truth strongly, there is always some danger 
of giving to the ill- willed the chance of stretching it 
beyond its scope. Here is the truth summed up into 
a single sentence: Humility indeed burns with a holy 
desire for perfection; but it does not, through indis- 
cretion, make foolish and ineffectual attempts to at- 
tain it. 

Another sin against humility is ambition, though 
it can also, and perhaps better, be classified as a sin 
against magnanimity. Ambition means an inordinate 
thirst for honor. Few people in the world are alto- 
gether free from it. The more we come in contact 
with mankind, the more we find that out. The young 
are naturally ambitious, we sometimes hear it said; 
and it is true. But we usually understand it in a 
sinless sense when we say or hear this. In truth and 
in reality, however, it is not so innocent. But age 
is not free from it either. We thought so once, but 
time has undeceived us. Old white-haired men, whose 
bodies are already filled with the odor of the grave, 
and whose hearts ought to be dead to the world be- 
cause the world is dead to them, are still dreaming, 
so we usually find it, some empty silly dream of 



124 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

ambition. The power of their wealth, the dignity of 
their station, the prestige of their family, the renown 
of their learning, the fame of their wisdom, the mem- 
ory of great deeds done in the past but long for- 
gotten by everybody but themselves, — all this and a 
hundred other things they still dream of as being 
capable of laying a few more empty honors at their 
feet. And if there is nothing else left to hope for, 
they still hope for a little honor at their funeral. Of 
all that useless torture, of all that vain and unhappy 
longing, a little humility will set us free. Perhaps 
it is not amiss to quote here the well-known words of 
Shakespeare on ambition. He lays these words into 
the mouth of Wolsey speaking, after his fall from 
glory, to his faithful servant Cromwell: "Mark but 
my fall and that which ruined me. Cromwell, I 
charge thee fling away ambition. By that sin fell 
the angels; how can man, then, the image of his 
Maker, hope to win by it?" And then again, after 
this same Wolsey had explained how a load that 
might have sunk a navy was now taken from his 
shoulders, — a load of too much honor, — ^he exclaims: 
"Oh, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden, too heavy 
for a man that hopes for heaven." 

The thing which ambition covets is honor. And 
honor is some exterior mark by which acknowledg- 
ment is made of a person's excellence. It is a testi- 
monial given to him of his worth. Titles and dignities 
and distinctions are honors. To covet honor is not 
always sinful, as has been explained before. But 
usually it is. It becomes sinful in three ways; first, 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 125 

when the honor is coveted for a supposed excellence 
in self that does not exist; secondly, when it is so 
claimed and appropriated as not to be made refer- 
able to God, the sole source of all from which honor 
can come; thirdly, when it is wanted only for the 
pleasure of self, and not for the good of others, for 
whom it is really given. An example of the first 
way is a man striving for an office for which he is 
not fitted. An example of the second way is a man 
appropriating all credit for an intellectual production 
of his, without referring it in any way to God, the 
Creator and Giver of his intellect. An example of 
the third way is a priest enjoying the honor of his 
priesthood for himself, forgetting altogether that it is 
an honor given to him for the sake of others. A 
still better example of the third way is a superior 
taking delight in his elevation, without remembering 
that he holds his office only for the benefit of others. 
All these sinful honors a truly humble person sincerely 
despises. Even for his virtues he does not want to 
be honored. The real reward for virtue is happiness, 
not honor. Attention should here be called to the 
difference which exists between honor and honor — 
between the honor that is taken and the honor that 
is given. The giver has nothing better to give, and 
so he appropriately gives it to deserving virtue. But 
virtue must have a higher aim and expect a nobler 
and better reward. The givers of honor fulfill a 
noble duty when they bestow it upon some virtuous 
person. For how would the world deteriorate if 
virtue would no longer be honored! Because that is 



126 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

the case, virtue receives it; but it does not receive it 
for self. It receives it for others. It receives it for 
God. Itself has a loftier end to aim at, a nobler 
object to live for, a sweeter treasure to rest in, than 
all the honors which all the world throughout all 
time could bestow. 

Another sin against humility in vainglory. It is 
scarcely distinguishable from ambition. It is thirst 
for glory, whilst ambition is thirst for honor. Glory 
and honor are often regarded as the same thing, but 
they are not the same. Glory consists in known and 
honored excellence. It is the effect of honor, not 
the honor itself. For example, if a learned man 
receives a title for his learning, the title itself is the 
honor, whilst the effect which it produces, namely 
respect for his learning, is the glory. Or again, if a 
bow of reverence is made to virtue, the bow itself is the 
honor, whilst the reverence which that bow indicates 
and manifests, is the glory. Honors do not necessarily 
suppose excellence, because honors are often bestowed 
upon the unworthy; and even conscious unworthiness 
can be delighted with them. Ambition desires the 
honors. It does not always link them with excellence. 
But the vainglorious person can desire his object only 
by resting it upon personal excellence. That excel- 
lence must at least be imagined if it is not real. Con- 
scious unworthiness can enjoy no glory. So this is 
the difference between vainglory and ambition. To 
desire real glory is not sinful. It is not sinful to 
see and to approve the excellence that is in you; for 
St. Paul says: "We have received, not the spirit of 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 127 

this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we 
may know the things that are given us by God." Nor 
is it sinful to wish that your excellence should be 
known to others, and approved by them; for our 
Savior says : "Neither do men light a candle and put 
it under a bushel, but upon a candle-stick, that it 
may shine to all that are in the house. So let your 
light shine before men, that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.** 
But to desire a vain or fictitious glory is sinful. 
Notice all along that humility is truth. One who 
fictitiously glories is vainglorious. This can happen 
in a three-fold manner. First, a man may glory in 
something that is not worthy of glory, in something 
transitory, or feeble, or frail; for example in bodily 
beauty. Secondly, a man may covet glory from a wrong 
source. He may covet it from the world instead of 
from God. The world usually bestows a fictitious 
glory, because it is usually mistaken about real ex- 
cellence and where it exists. Thirdly, a man may covet 
glory without referring it to God. He may want to 
enjoy it all. He may want to keep it all to himself. 
It is evident from this explanation that it is difficult 
to have glory, or to enjoy glory, or to desire glory, 
without committing sin. Yet the fault is not glory's, 
but ours. The glory we enjoy or covet is usually 
not the right kind of glory. It is usually a fictitious 
glory, a vain glory, a sinful glory, — a glory that arises 
from our self-love, from our blindness, from our 
weakness ; that is to say, a glory born of an imaginary 
excellence. It is a hollow glory. That is what the 



128 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

word vain means — empty and without substance. This 
said, to obviate a possible misunderstanding, I must 
not forget here to mention, and that too with con- 
siderable emphasis, that it is often, not only no fault, 
but even a duty, to desire glory. "'Let your light 
shine before men." But this kind of glory is not 
a glory for self, but a glory for God, according to 
St. Paul, who says: *'He that glorieth, let him glory 
in the Lord. For not he who commendeth himself 
is approved, but he whom God commendeth." Glory 
consists in having your excellence known. But it con- 
tributes nothing to your perfection to have it known. 
Therefore you ought not to wish it under that aspect. 
Yet you may wish it from other considerations; and 
it may even be your duty to wish it. You may wish 
it, because it induces others to give glory to God. 
Or you may wish it, because it causes others to be 
benefited by the good which they see in you. Or 
you may even wish it, because the esteem of others 
for you is a means to preserve you in virtue. This 
last consideration, though a little surprising and 
strange at first sight, should not be overlooked or 
forgotten. For who does not know that thousands 
of men in the world, and still more thousands of 
women, have kept their virtue only because the world 
had a high regard for them? And if I say "only 
because," I do not mean that human respect was their 
only motive; but I mean that it was a shelter 
and a safe-guard without which supernatural virtue 
would have failed. From this it is clear that genuine 
glory, sought and loved in a right manner, and in 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 129 

a right measure, and for a good reason, is good, and 
not evil. It is glory, but not vainglory; and only 
vainglory is sinful. 

The transgressions of vainglory are usually only 
venial. But they are dangerous in many ways, and 
often lead on into mortal sin. When the greed for 
a foolish glory once enters a heart, the love and the 
fear of God in it must continually tremble for their 
endangered empire. Even faith, the foundation of 
everything, is no longer secure. For Jesus reproached 
the unbelievers of His day by saying: "How can you 
believe who receive glory from one another; and the 
glory which is from God alone you do not seek?'' 
And speaking to His apostles, or rather to a great 
multitude gathered around Him on the mountain, He 
warns them against vainglory in these well-known 
words: 'Take heed that you do not your justice 
before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you shall 
not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven." 

We can now dismiss honor and glory in so far 
as they are made sinful by an inordinate desire for 
them. But it is also possible to fear them and to 
shun them too much. And that shrinking from the 
burden of honor is often taken for humility when 
in reality it is an insult to it. It is called pusillan- 
imity. The words mean small-mindedness. Magna- 
nimity means large-mindedness. So the two are 
opposed to each other. But pusillanimity is excessive 
humility, and under that aspect it is here considered. 
It consists in an excessive fear of failure; and that 
fear is based upon a mistaken conviction that there 



130 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

is no ability to accomplish what is to be accomplished. 
It is an erroneous judgment about self. But that 
judgment has in it more of laziness and self-love 
than anything else. The love of ease seems to be its 
predominating passion. That is the reason why it 
shrinks from what is difficult; and that then too is 
the reason why it shrinks from honor and glory. It 
is a faint-heartedness that is very dishonorable. It 
is severely condemned by our Divine Savior in that 
servant whom he calls "wicked and slothful." That 
servant had received a talent, not much but still a 
talent; but instead of using it, as he was expected 
to do, he went and hid it in the earth. He was afraid 
to use it, and so he hid it. The eloquent and pre- 
tentious excuses he made for his fear, were scorn- 
fully rejected by his master; and his talent was taken 
away from him and given to another. This is plain 
enough. It could not be plainer. Yet there are souls 
by the hundreds to be found who admire, mostly in 
themselves, but sometimes also in others, this lazy 
fearfulness, and call it humility. 

Another sin against humility, already glanced at 
above, is abjection — a slavish vileness of spirit which 
stoops to all kinds of baseness for a consideration. 
Sometimes it flatters. Sometimes it praises. Some- 
times it obeys, nay more than obeys. Sometimes it 
is patient. Sometimes it endures the almost unen- 
durable. Sometimes it bows down, and crouches, and 
cringes, and fawns. But it is always for a consider- 
ation. And the consideration is not God, nor the 
unworthiness of self with its consequent due, but some 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 131 

emolument, some honor, some position, some rank, 
some affection, some profitable good-will, or some- 
thing else of a like dishonorable nature. Abjection 
means a throwing-away. It has the right name, for 
this is surely the throwing away of one's dignity. 
And it makes no difference whether it is done in 
or outside religion, with or without vows of obedi- 
ence. Submission to God ennobles; and that is hu- 
mility. Submission to man degrades; and that is 
abjection. Submission to man for God, is not sub- 
mission to man, but submission to Him for whom 
it is made; and that also ennobles; that also is hu- 
mility. It is possible that this abjection has a certain 
sincerity about it, that it is low-mindedness and want 
of spirit, the habit of a heart that was always a slave, 
that never thought other or felt other than a slave. But 
usually it is a vice indulged in by the proud, and 
indulged in, as said above for a consideration. In that 
instance it is yoked with hypocrisy. Pride, abjection, 
and hypocrisy, all found in that disgusting submission 
of man to man as man, — and then there are some 
so profoundly stupid as to suppose it humility. 

Last of the sins against humility to be mentioned 
is pride proper. It consists in an inordinate craving 
for excellence. Or it may be said to consist in a 
craving for the wrong kind of excellence. And this 
excellence pride always refers to self as a cause for 
raising self up. It is self-exaltation. It is diametric- 
ally opposed to humility. The essence of humility is 
to refer nothing to self, but all to God. The essence 
of pride is to refer nothing to God, but all to self. 



132 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

Self is the thing which pride never loses from sight, 
the thing which it esteems, the thing which it loves, 
the thing which it worships and adores. Presump- 
tion and vainglory and ambition aim at something 
outside of self, though they refer it to self; but pride 
makes self its sole object, the object to be preferred 
before others, the object to be exalted above others, 
the object to be gazed upon with an idolatrous admi- 
ration and to be loved with an idolatrous love. The 
proud man intensely considers his perfections whether 
they be real or imaginary. If they are real, he mag- 
nifies them. If they are imaginary, he nevertheless 
believes in them. But from his imperfections he turns 
his eyes away. Consequently he appears to himself 
far greater than he really is. Again, he does not 
refer what he is and has to God. He does not re- 
member that it is his only through a bountiful con- 
descension on the part of God. But he considers it 
as his due, as his rightful possession, quite as much 
so as if he himself were its root and its origin. Hence 
it is, then, that he esteems himself and his perfections 
so highly, and loves them so inordinately. Hence it 
is then too that he aims at what is above him, that 
he refuses to submit himself to others, that he wants 
to enjoy a preference over them, that he looks down 
upon them, that he despises them, and that he covets 
praise and honor and glory for himself as so many 
fitting tributes to be rendered to his worthy self. If 
he is an inferior, he is wiser, of course, than his 
superior, and refuses to submit to him; or, if he sub- 
mits, his submission is a mere outward submission, 



SINS AGAINST HUMILITY 133 

accompanied by inner acts of condemnation, and scorn 
and rebellion. If he is a superior, he is not so by the 
grace of God of course, but on account of his own 
excellence, his own natural superiority, and conse- 
quently he rules with an inconsiderateness, an un- 
kindness, a haughtiness, which give us a right to 
conclude that he represents as much of the devil as 
he does of God. All these are but so many steps 
towards that mournful consummation of pride which 
consists in a positive and direct non-submission to 
God. The man who has arrived at that point, finds 
fault with God, thinks that he owes Him nothing, 
and feels convinced that he can get along without 
Him. Hence it is that Holy Scripture represents 
pride, in its final consummation or its climax, as an 
apostasy from God. It says: "The beginning of the 
pride of man is to fall from God; because his heart 
is departed from Him that made him: for pride is 
the beginning of all sin; he that holdeth it shall be 
filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the 
end." Evidently that does not mean that all pride 
is apostasy, nor even that all pride is seriously sinful. 
So long as a man refrains from committing mortal 
sin; that is to say, so long as he refrains from 
breaking God's law grievously; so long has he the 
humility of submission in a sufficient degree to save 
his soul. Whatever other acts of pride go with that 
submission are pride in its imperfect form, and only 
venially sinful. But even that imperfect pride is a 
dangerous thing, because it smothers grace after grace. 



134 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

and paves the way to the deepest and most disgrace- 
ful falls. 

Let the reader here recall what was said about the 
excellence of humility on account of its being a gen- 
eral virtue, that is to say, a virtue which incites and 
accompanies and perfects all other virtues. Pride has 
a like generality among vices. It provokes them all. 
It accompanies them all. It promotes them all. It 
redounds to them all. It reaches them all by its con- 
tempt of God's law and by its unwillingness to serve. 
It was that pride in other sins which God meant to 
reproach when he said: 'Thou hast broken my yoke, 
thou hast burst my bands, and thou hast said : I will 
not serve. For on every high hill, and under every 
green tree, thou didst prostitute thyself." That does 
not mean, however, that all sins are sins of pride. 
There is contempt of law in every sin which breaks 
it; and contempt of law is pride. But sin is usually 
not committed out of contempt, but from frailty; 
that is to say, there is a real contempt of the law 
in every transgression of it, but the transgressor does 
not always intend it. But if the contempt is in the 
mind, that is to say if the pride is in the heart, sin 
multiplies with ease, and its malice is of a deeper 
and darker kind. Whoever considers that, and does 
not want to perish, must let humility descend into his 
soul, to eradicate that ugly and disfiguring and dan- 
gerous pride. 



CHAPTER XXII 
OUR DIVINE MODEL 

I HAVE now come to the end of my explanation 
on humility. I have defined it and described it 
as well as I could. I tried to be clear. I tried to 
say as little as possible where I thought redundancy 
confusing. I tried to be complete where I feared 
that incompleteness might be misleading. I hope that 
I succeeded in saying what I wanted to say. But 
often others do not understand us when we take our- 
selves to be most intelligible. Let me hope, however, 
that I have not altogether failed. Let me now proceed 
to add a few reflections on a few more features of 
beauty which I wished to touch, but could not with- 
out introducing disturbing points into my treatise. It 
is always best to keep the mind unscattered when 
you aim at making a precise impression upon it. So 
I now recur to the omission. And my first reflections, 
in connection with humility, shall be made on our 
Divine Savior. 

He had no human personality. The person who 
bore the human nature in Him was divine. It was 
God the Son, the second Person in the Blessed Trin- 
ity. But God cannot be humble. For Him to be 
humble would not be the truth ; and humility is truth. 

135 



136 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

It is in the nature of humility not to appropriate 
honor to self, but to Him to whom the honor is due 
— to God. That is possible only in the creature. It 
is not possible in God. He must want the honor. 
He must insist on it. He cannot be humble. But 
there was in Jesus a human nature, a human mind, a 
human heart, and a human soul. That human mind and 
heart could be humble, and they were. No other mind 
was ever so vast and so comprehensive. No other 
heart was ever so deep and so delicate. No other 
soul was ever so gifted with grace. Yet that mind 
and heart and soul were profoundly humble. They 
were what no other created being ever was. They had 
what no other created being ever had. Yet of them- 
selves they were and had nothing. They were what 
Omnipotence made them. They had what Omnipo- 
tence gave them. They knew that. They understood 
that. They acknowledged that. Therefore they gave 
all the glory of their goodness and greatness to God. 
That was humility, but that was also the truth. Even 
in Jesus you could not get away from humility with- 
out getting away from the truth. This humility in 
our Savior was a sort of necessity. We saw that 
it is in the nature of pride to attribute to self the 
glory of its excellence. By self, in that case, we 
mean, not the good which a person possesses, not 
his gifts and graces, not his powers and faculties, 
but the person himself, the person in whom those 
perfections inhere. The / is the thing that is exalted. 
The / is the thing that is glorified. The / is the thing 
that is puffed up with pride. The / is the thing that 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 137 

has cast out humility. But in our Savior there was 
no human person. There was a human nature, but 
that human nature was owned by a Divine Person- 
aUty. That human nature found its subsistence, not 
in itself, but in a person altogether divine. That 
human nature had glorious attributes, and it did 
glorious things; but there was no human person to 
whom to refer that glory. It had to be referred to 
the Person who owned that nature. It had to be 
referred to God. In Jesus this was a necessity. And 
what kind of necessity was it? It was the simple 
necessity of truth. But even if there had been a 
human person, that person would have had no right 
to the glory for which only God had furnished the 
cause. 

This furnishes us with a model of humility, a 
beautiful model, a model to be contemplated with 
wonder and to be copied with eager devotion. If it 
were possible to annihilate the / in us without anni- 
hilating our nature, how natural would humility be- 
come! The foundation on which our pride rests 
would be gone. The subject in which it inheres 
would be gone. The object which it exalts would 
be gone. And our pride too would be gone, like a 
ghost that has vanished. It is not possible, however, 
nor would it be right even if it were possible, to anni- 
hilate the real / in ourselves. But we can annihilate 
it in a moral sense; that is to say, we can forget it, 
we can pass it over as if it were not, we can leave 
it out of notice and out of consideration. The soul 
of Jesus was a sort of stranger to itself* It did not 



188 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

belong to itself. It belonged to Another. The 
treasures of that soul were in no danger of being 
appropriated by it. It held them for Him who held 
that soul. To Him it referred whatever glory there 
came from those treasures. Our souls, on the other 
hand, have human personalities to own them, to 
domineer over them, to steal their treasures, or to 
appropriate their glory. To pass by these human per- 
sonalities as if they did not exist, to keep them in 
their place, to push them into the back-ground where 
they belong, — that is the business of humility. It is 
a sort of moral annihilation of self, of a proud self, 
of a covetous self, of a thievish self, of a self all 
naked and poor, but anxious to clothe and to enrich 
itself with Another's glory. In other words, humility 
is the guardian of God's treasures; and the duty of 
her guardianship consists, partly at least, in keeping 
the robbers out of sight and at a safe distance. 

But again, let us look at our divine model from 
another point of view. The mind of Jesus was in- 
undated, as it were, by the vast ocean of divine in- 
telligence, because His human nature was united to 
the divine in one and the same person. His human 
mind therefore saw, saw as no angel could ever see, the 
greatness and the sanctity and the majesty of 
Almighty God. The astronomer wanders through the 
realms of space, and vainly tries to count the burning 
suns that roll around him. Millions and tens of 
millions he has counted, but still his task is not fin- 
ished ; it is only begun. He measures them, and finds 
them, even the smallest among them, ten thousand 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 139 

times larger than this earth. He calls them fixed, 
and yet they are moving. They are rushing onward 
with an incredible speed, but he can notice no change 
in their position, not even after a number of years. 
He knows that light travels at the rate of over ten 
million miles in a minute. But he knows also that 
the light of some of these suns takes centuries of 
years to reach our earth, so far away from it they 
are. He takes his telescope and turns it into the 
heavens on a clear cloudless night. He tries to pierce 
the blue depths, but he cannot. His intensified vision 
carries him to a distance incalculable and wellnigh 
unimaginable. But it is not the end of space nor the 
limit of creation. Undreamed-of worlds may still be 
lying beyond. And all this was made by God out of 
nothing with a single word. And all this is kept by 
God in continued existence and in harmonious motion. 
The astronomer pauses for a moment. He sinks into 
reflection. He is overwhelmed with the thought of 
God's power and greatness. But how little of God's 
power and greatness does that poor astronomer really 
see! To the invisible creation he has not yet 
turned his attention. And of the world of grace he 
has not yet found time to think. What a mere idiot 
he is when you compare him to Jesus. That Jesus 
had an infinitely better comprehension of the great- 
ness, of the majesty, of the power, and of the sanctity 
of God. He had even gazed into the unfathomable 
depths of the divine essence, for He had the beatific 
vision. But this Jesus, on the other hand, saw also, 
as no other mind was ever able to see, the absolute 



140 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

nothingness of all that is human. All that is human 
comes from nothing, and tends to go back to nothing. 
This was just as true of the human nature of Jesus as 
it is of any other human nature. His human nature 
was created by God. It was elevated by God. It was 
made great by God. Of itself it had nothing and 
was nothing. And this nothingness in himself seemed 
all the more absolutely nothing to the mind of Jesus 
when He compared it, or rather opposed it, to the 
greatness and majesty of God, which He understood 
so well. This was the truth. And the acquiescing of 
the will of Jesus in that truth, made His humility. 

But here is another consideration which shows us 
the humility of Jesus in another light, and under an- 
other and much sadder aspect. He was the Lamb 
of God that was to take away the sin of the world, 
as Scripture has it. He had accepted from His Father 
the enormous task of atonement. He had allowed, 
or rather invited, the Father to lay upon Him, and to 
chastise in Him, all the wrongs and crimes and iniqui- 
ties of mankind. He therefore looked upon Himself 
as loaded with all the degrading shame of their de- 
linquencies. And it must be remembered that He 
saw the malice of sin as we can never see it. We 
sometimes say, with more truth than we can realize, 
that a great sin is full of an infinite wickedness, be- 
cause it is an insult aimed at an infinitely great and 
good Being. But this is easier to say than to under- 
stand. That the insult is measured, in part at least, 
by the majesty of the great God to whom it is oflfered, 
is clear enough. But who can measure that majesty? 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 141 

There was one human mind that could, but only one 
— the mind of Jesus. He saw the greatness of the 
injury done to God by sin. He saw to the towering 
height of every pride; and He saw to the darkening 
depth of every ingratitude. And no wickedness of 
the world was hidden from His sight. On the cor- 
trary, He was brought into painful contact with it; 
because He was to atone for it. The weight of every 
sin was pressing on His heart. The shame of every 
crime was burning in His memory. He bore the dis- 
grace because He wanted to bear it. He felt the 
confusion because He wanted to feel it. He had 
made Himself a victim for sin, and so He wanted to 
suffer all its fierce odium. He had made Himself a 
victim for sin, and so He wanted to drink its infamy 
in full measure. Imagine a delicate conscience awaken- 
ing, after a long time of pitiful aberrations, covered 
with shame and confusion beneath which it feels like 
withering, and violently thirsting to blot out its sins 
with death if it could only die for them; and then 
imagine that all the sinners in the world and of all 
the ages of the world had a like feeling — sum it all 
up into one vast sentiment of humility, and you will 
not yet have the sentiment which broke the heart of 
Jesus as it was crushed with the sins of the world. 
Nor was this all. In the midst of this torturing flame 
of inner shamefulness and sorrow. He longed also 
for the outer humiliations which His loaded-up sins 
deserved, and bore them with a heroic fortitude when 
they burst upon Him. To every triumph of His 
enemies He meekly submitted. To every calumny He 



142 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

answered with silence. To every abuse He opposed 
an inexhaustible patience. Every indignity He will- 
ingly took. Every insult He uncomplainingly accepted. 
Every torment he eagerly embraced. To such a depth 
did the humility of Jesus descend. With the leprosy 
of others it wanted to cover itself; and for the leprosy 
of others it wanted to feel pain and die. 

If the humility of our Savior was such, what 
should be our humility? How immeasurably inferior 
even to His human nature, considered apart from all 
that was divine in Him, is ours? From ourselves we 
have neither our nature nor the beautiful gifts with 
which it is enriched. From the deep depth of noth- 
ingness we are taken. Back into that deep depth of 
nothingness we should instantly sink if the hand of 
Omnipotence did not hold us and preserve us. All 
material objects gravitate towards the center of the 
earth. They fall in that direction as soon as there is 
nothing to hinder or to hold them. In like manner, 
bur poor created nature gravitates towards its own 
center, which is nothingness. From that deep abyss 
it was drawn by creation. Into that deep abyss it 
would again fall by its own weight if there was no 
Divine Preserver, or if He ceased for a moment to 
exert His power over it. Is this not enough to give 
us a low opinion of ourselves? But this sentiment 
should be immeasurably enlivened and increased when 
we oppose this nothingness of ours to the greatness 
and majesty and self-sufficiency of Almighty God. 
Boundless in being and in power and in richness and 
in beauty, He had no need to go out of Himself for 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 143 

anything more. But with His infinite power He 
reached down into the unfathomable depth of dark 
nothing, and drew us forth from it. Great we may 
be in our dependence on Him ; but nothing we are in 
our dependence on ourselves. And this is all the 
more true when you consider man in the supernatural 
instead of in the natural order. There he is a wonder- 
ful being, endowed with gifts and graces that make 
him like to God, with gifts and graces which in a 
measure make it possible for him to share with God 
His own life and His own glory and His own happi- 
ness. But those gifts and graces are a mere con- 
descension on the part of God, a mere overbubbling 
of His goodness upon man as it were. What need 
had God to go out of Himself? He had within Him- 
self all that He needed for His peace. His rest, and 
His blessedness. And if He went out of Himself, 
as He did, to make man, and endowed him with God- 
like gifts, and destined him to a God-like life and to 
a God-like blessedness in His own home in eternity, 
what had man to do with all that? Absolutely nothing. 
He would not even know about this if God had not 
told him. And even if he knows, he can do nothing 
to attain his end unless God helps him. It is grace 
that enlightens the mind. It is grace that enkindles 
the heart. It is grace that infuses strength. It is 
grace that animates nature with a divine life, and 
stamps it with a divine character, and adorns it with 
a divine beauty. What has man to do with all that? 
Absolutely nothing. And did he get that grace in 
creation? Alas! no; his nature had forfeited it, had 



144 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

lost it for all time to come, in the fall of his first 
father and mother. He himself could no more re- 
cover it than the dead man can recover his life. And 
who then regained it for him? His Savior Jesus 
Christ. And how did He regain it for him? By 
descending, with His holy innocence, down into the 
very dust — by humiliations bitterer than the bitter- 
ness of death. Look at the contrast between yourself 
and God. Look at the picture of Jesus thinking as 
He thought and living as He lived and dying as He 
died. Look at it — and then wilt with shame if you are 
not humble. 

After these considerations, it is impossible not to 
listen to Jesus, or to question the right of His chal- 
lenge, when He says: ''Learn of Me, for I am meek 
and humble of heart." He did not do the easier, 
and then ask of you the harder. But He did the 
harder, and then asked of you the easier. He humbled 
Himself for transgressions not His own but yours. 
Look at yourself from that point of view. Little 
enough you were without your sins ; but what are you 
with them? Scarcely had you arrived at the dawn 
of reason when your life of sin began. Time has 
gone on. Year after year has rolled away. You 
are no longer young. Perhaps you are old, or fast 
growing old. And what do you find in your memory 
as you let it run down the golden past? What did I 
say — "golden" ? Alas ! what years can be golden that 
are filled with sin? And sin your poor memory hits 
upon everywhere. Sometimes it is sin of a less serious 
character. But often, perhaps usually, it is grievous 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 145 

and mortal sin. And the number of it is so great 
that your memory fails to recall it. The picture of 
the past is like a wide undulating ocean. Wave 
crowds wave, just as sin crowds sin ; and you can only 
guess at the number. But suppose even that you have 
a comparatively innocent life to gaze back upon. Is 
that innocence really any merit of yours? Were you 
not born with a singularly beautiful disposition? And 
who gave you that disposition? Did you yourself? 
And if not, to whom does the credit of a greater tran- 
quillity in your life belong? Or were you preserved 
from sin by the beautiful shelter of solicitous parents, 
or by an education so careful as to have kept you so 
good ? All this is very well. But did you select your 
parents? Did you provide for your own education, 
and did yqu choose it yourself? Or is your sinlessness 
perhaps; to be ascribed to your happy surroundings? 
The occasions in which others perished never came 
near you. The temptations in which others went 
under never assailed you. But who gave you those 
happy surroundings? Did you create them yourself? 
Or did you even choose them after God had created 
them? Or is it perhaps a higher vocation in life that 
has preserved you? And if so, did you give that to 
yourself, or did it come from above? What did our 
Savior say to indicate on which side the merit of 
vocation lies? "You have not chosen me,'' He said 
in warning His apostles not to take credit to them- 
selves, ''but I have chosen you." And yet, with all 
these things in your favor through no merit of yours, 
how often did you forget yourself ; how often did you 



146 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

falter; how often did you sin? If others sinned more, 
let that be no excuse to extol yourself above them; 
let that be no excuse to ascend up higher in your 
own esteem. Look at your sins. They are numerous 
enough. They are wicked enough. They are shame- 
ful enough. Loaded with them and their guilt, place 
yourself in opposition to God — and then wither away 
with confusion at the sight of it. Loaded with them 
and their guilt, place yourself side by side with the 
innocent and humble and suffering Jesus — and then 
feel ashamed of yourself and your pride. Learn 
from Him, if you are too stupid to learn in any other 
way. Learn from Him. His life lies before you. 
You need only to open your eyes and to look. Learri 
from Him to be "meek and humble of heart." 

Take notice, reader, of our Savior's exact words 
and their precise meaning. He does not say: Learn 
from Me, for I am humble in my language, humble 
in my demeanor, humble in my pretensions; but He 
says: "Learn from Me, for I am humble of heart." 
His humility lay not only in His conduct, but also in 
His soul. The thoughts of His mind were humble.. 
The feelings of His heart were humble. How many 
men and women are htmible in appearance, but in 
appearance only! The world is proud. Pride is its 
predominant passion. But in its conduct it is often 
the contrary. With condescension and self-oblitera- 
tion in its speech and in its manners, it is inwardly 
bursting with self -exaltation and with self-importance. 
Pride is detestable, and everybody knows it. And if he 
does not know it, he need but to come into its presence 



OUR DIVINE MODEL 147 

to feel it. Humility, on the other hand, is amiable 
like an angel from Paradise. Everybody feels it and 
sees it and is convinced of it as soon as he comes into 
her presence. To that truth the world cannot be 
blind. It wants the effect of that virtue, but it does 
not care for the virtue itself. So what does the 
world do? It counterfeits that virtue. To secure 
the amiableness of the genuine article would cost too 
long a struggle and too bitter an anguish; and so it 
contents itself with the amiableness of the counter- 
feit. It is a borrowed splendor with which it tries 
to shine and to deceive; and it has learned its art so 
well that it often, if not usually, succeeds. That is 
not the kind of humility that is worth anything. That 
is not the kind of humility our Savior had. That is 
not the kind of humility He wants us to have. His 
humility came from within. His outward actions 
did not belie His inward thought and feeling. That 
is the reason He said: "Learn from me for I am 
humble of heart." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

HUMILITY SHOULD BE UNCONSCIOUS, BUT 
LOVED IN SELF MORE THAN IN OTHERS 

THIS now brings us to a point which it is diffi- 
cult to understand, and still more difficult to 
explain. The humility that comes from the 
heart is natural, not artiificial. It is also open and 
frank and sincere. The truth is always sincere; and 
it is nearly always open and frank. This is perfectly 
plain. It seems quite as plain to say that humility 
of the heart is natural; but it is not quite so plain as 
it seems. If you inquire into the question of natural- 
ness of conduct, you will find that it arises from los- 
ing consciousness of self. A self-conscious person is 
artificial and stiff and unnatural. He becomes easy 
and natural only from the moment when self is 
dropped from the mind. This brings us to the diffi- 
cult point. A humility that is natural, or, what is the 
same thing, a humility that comes from the heart, is 
not a self-conscious humility. It is, as it were, the 
very forgetting of self which makes that humility 
what it is. If it ever awakens to consciousness, if it 
ever reflects upon self, if it ever sees and recognizes 
its face in the mirror of memory, — from that instant 
it ceases to exist; from that instant it fades away, 

148 



HUMILITY SHOULD BE UNCONSCIOUS 149 

or rather alters into something else — into its opposite,, 
into vanity or pride. It sounds strange to hear it, 
and it is not easy to believe it, yet true it is: you 
must keep humility ignorant of itself if you want to 
keep it in existence. Without that ignorance it is 
never bom, and without that ignorance it is never 
preserved. Let me illustrate. Here is a wonderful 
talent. It accomplishes wonderful things. Suppose 
it to be the talent of a child. If you can keep the 
child ignorant of its talent, that talent unfolds itself 
to its fullest capacity, and displays all its unconscious 
powers with remarkable effect. Now if you want to 
sterilize and make useless that talent, if you want to 
reduce it to utter impotency, just inform the child of 
its existence. The illustration, like every other illus- 
tration, is a little faulty, and does not dispel all ob- 
scurity; but it opens the way to a somewhat better 
understanding. And for a further proof of my state- 
ment, I appeal to that deep and fine instinct of the 
heart which finds the truth better than any understand- 
ing. Was any man ever so mad as to protest that 
he was humble? And as he must not say it, if he 
wants people any longer to admit it; so also must he 
not think it, if he wants God any longer to believe in 
it. And if God no longer believes in it, it is no longer 
there. But here then is another difficulty. Jesus must 
have been fully conscious of His humility, or He could 
not have said: "Learn of me, for I am meek and 
humble of heart." The explanation is, that it was the 
Divine Personality in Him that spoke, and that put 
the human nature before us for imitation. 



160 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

*Xearn of me'*; that is to say, copy my humility 
into your life. Now why do we not do that? It is 
because we cannot appreciate its amiableness in our- 
selves, however much we appreciate it in others. In 
others we admire it with a boundless admiration; in 
ourselves we hate it with an implacable hatred. We 
may love in ourselves the false image we make of it, 
but the genuine hard reality we hate. Is it possible 
for any person in the world to see another refuse a 
great place, a great power, a great honor, or a great 
glory, without admiring him, if not openly, then at 
least secretly in one's silent mind, and without loving 
him, if not loudly and declaredly, then at least in some 
hidden and holy corner of one's heart? No; it is not 
possible. But that admiration and love which we feel 
for humility in others, — what an implicit condemna- 
tion it is of the vanity, the ambition, and the pride 
that is in ourselves! And it is all the stranger that 
we clasp our abominable pride so persistently and so 
affectionately to our bosoms, when we remember that 
it insults ourselves even more than it insults others. 
It does just the opposite of what we dream it to do. 
We imagine that it elevates, but it degrades. We 
imagine that it glorifies, but it disfigures. Did I not 
show above that humility is all truth, and that pride is 
all falsehood ? And can a truth ever degrade, or can 
a lie ever elevate? The fact then is that humility 
makes great and ennobles, and that pride makes little 
and debases. Or again let me point to the justice 
of humility, and to the injustice of pride; and then 
let me ask: Is it possible for injustice ever to beau- 



HUMILITY SHOULD BE UNCONSCIOUS 161 

tify, or for justice ever to disfigure? How comes it 
then that we are so fond of that loathsome monster, 
Pride, and embrace it ; and so afraid of that amiable 
angel, Humility, and fly away from it 2 



CHAPTER XXIV 
ADVANTAGES OF HUMILITY 

IN all that has been thus far said about humility, 
its great worthiness of esteem must have been 
felt continually. But let us now pass in quick 
review a few of its wonderful advantages. It is 
seldom that a man remains uninterested if you speak 
to him of his own advantages. The first advantage 
of humility which comes to my mind is this, — that it 
finds a speedy and an infallibly certain access to the 
generosity of God. Let me explain. Pride appro- 
priates to self what it is holding only in trust. All 
it has it has received from God, and received only to 
be used for God, and to be given back to Him with 
accumulated interest as soon as He demands it. Life 
is His gift, and talent is His gift, and grace is His 
gift, and wealth is His gift, and power is His gift, 
and authority is His gift. They are His, together 
with the fruit which they produce — the success, the 
honor, the glory. But pride forgets this truth, or 
rather intentionally ignores it, and appropriates every- 
thing to itself. It is not only dishonest, but also dis- 
honorable. It not only commits a theft, but also be- 
trays a trust. It robs, not only an indifferent stranger, 
which would be bad enough; but a confiding Bene- 

152 



ADVANTAGES OF HUMILITY 153 

factor, which is worse. And then it proceeds to turn 
those stolen goods against Him from whom it took 
them. It adds treachery to the theft and insult to 
the injury. Can such an abuse of confidence be re- 
warded with another trust and with other benefac- 
tions? You will scarcely hold that possible. The 
Scriptures tell us plainly that God is a jealous God, 
and that He will not allow His right to be usurped by 
another. Even in the angels and saints there is but 
a reflected glory, a glory that comes from Him and 
that must be referred back to Him. Of this the 
humble are deeply and keenly sensible. Not for the 
world would they appropriate any of God's gifts. Not 
for the world would they steal any of His glory. Not 
for the world would they shine with a borrowed 
splendor. At least it would be their grief and afflic- 
tion if the world ascribed it to them. God then sees 
instantly that in their keeping His gifts and His 
graces are safe. They will never forget His good- 
ness. They will never abuse His generosity. They 
will never betray His trust. And the result then is 
that God will shower upon them, with a profusion 
that knows no bounds, the choicest and the greatest 
of His treasurers. This new condescension on the 
part of God will then inspire them with a new sense 
of their indebtedness, and sink them into a still pro- 
founder depth of humble acknowledgment. And that 
new sense and new acknowledgment will move God 
to another new bestowal of grace; and thus there will 
be a sort of race between God and His humble crea- 
tures, they descending from a feeling of unworthiness 



154 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

under such a load of increasing favors, and He pursu- 
ing them with fresh gifts of His confidence on account 
of their increasing humility. Holy Scripture bears 
us out in this reasoning, for it says: *'God resisteth 
the proud, but to the humble He giveth grace." 

Another advantage of humility is that it shelters us 
from angered Justice. Our sins deserve punishment. 
It is bad enough in life to have them stand against 
us. But it is unbearable after death. 'It is terrible 
to fall into the hands of the living God," says Scrip- 
ture. But humility appeases God's anger, and dis- 
arms His justice. Look at the Publican in the temple. 
He was a much greater sinner than the Pharisee. But 
he was humble ; and our Savior declared, with an oath, 
that he went home justified ; whilst the proud Pharisee, 
who thanked God that he was not so wicked as the 
Publican, remained in his sins. It is impossible to 
conceive that a tnily humble soul should be rejected 
by God in death, no matter what her crimes in days 
far gone may have been. Humility supplies that 
which was wanting in life — a. sweet consolation — 
and beautifies that which was not wanting. Every- 
thing was wanting in the life of the Publican; and 
yet he went home justified. If he had died that day, 
his soul would have been saved, with a boundless and 
eternal blessedness as its reward. As its reward for 
what? For its humility; for other virtues we are not 
told that it had. At any rate, its justification was 
ascribed by our Savior to its humility alone. And 
we have the assurance of Jesus, on the other hand, 
that if the proud Pharisee had died that day, his soul 



ADVANTAGES OF HUMILITY 155 

would have been hopelessly lost. And yet he had 
many virtues. We have no reason to believe that he 
lied when he protested that he was chaste, not an 
adulterer like so many others in the world. We have 
no reason to believe that he lied when he said that 
he was generous, stating that he gave one-tenth of 
all that he had in alms. We have no reason to be- 
lieve that he lied when he represented himself as morti- 
fied, claiming that he curbed his sensual appetites by 
fasting several times in a week. Our Savior does not 
say that all this was not true. But He does say that 
he was not justified. And the reason He assigns is 
his utter want of humility. Therefore in vain are 
we generous, in vain are we temperate, in vain are we 
just, in vain are we charitable, in vain are we chaste, 
if we are not humble. Humility gives life and beauty 
and value to our other virtues. 

But not only does humility enhance the value of 
other virtues; it also safeguards and protects them. 
Everybody is familiar with the proverb which de- 
clares that pride is invariably followed by a fall. Dif- 
fidence of self is the soul's best security. It is related 
in the life of St. Anthony that he once had a vision 
in which he saw the world through which we all have 
to pass covered thick with toils and snares. He 
sighed in distress, and cried out: "Alas, how is it 
possible to pass through such a world without perish- 
ing!'' And he immediately heard a voice answering: 
"It is humility, but only humility, that can pass 
through it with perfect security." Take, for example, 
chastity. It is so easily shipwrecked; and yet storm 



156 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

after storm is arising against it. Put it into the 
care of humility, and it is never exposed. No danger- 
ous place, no dangerous company, no dangerous 
courtship, no dangerous amusement, is tolerated. 
Humility is too conscious of its frailty ever to expose 
its treasure. And the consequence then is that chastity 
is perfectly safe in its keeping. But put it into the 
hands of pride, and it will inevitably perish. Reck- 
lessly exposed to every temptation and boldly carried 
into every danger, because of an overweening confi- 
dence in self, it first falters, with some show of re- 
sistance, and then lapses from one lamentable fall into 
another. How many young men and young women 
have carried their chastity to certain death in this 
fatal presumption! And how many foolish parents, 
presuming as proudly as they, have looked carelessly 
on, as their children thus played with their immortal 
souls and with their eternal salvation! Only he can 
know the full sadness of this fearful truth to whom 
the consciences of the fallen have revealed their deep 
miseries. And as it is with chastity, so is it also with 
other virtues. Humility is their shelter ; pride is their 
ruin. Just remember Peter's presumption, and what 
followed so fast upon it. 

I would like to mention here an advantage of 
humility which is very beautiful and consoling, if it 
were not for the fact that humility is unconscious of 
self, and must therefore more or less be unconscious 
also of this beauty and consolation in its own case. 
But I will mention it anyhow in passing. There are 
thousands of anxious souls in the world who would 



ADVANTAGES OF HUMILITY 157 

give their life to know in what condition they are with 
respect to their salvation. Are they in God's grace 
and love? or are they not? It is a part of the very 
humility we are studying to be content with uncer- 
tainty. St. Paul did not know for himself; and how 
then, or why then, should we ? Do what you can, says 
humility, and then leave the rest to God, and be quiet. 
But any humble man could know, if his own humility 
could know itself. No other pledge on earth is so 
certain as the pledge of God's love which we hold in 
humility. "This man went down into his house 
justified," said Jesus of the Publican. He did not 
know it; but it was true nevertheless. And so is it 
with every other humility. It is infallibly certain of 
God's favor ; or could be so, if it could only be certain 
of itself. Speaking of humility in an objective sense, 
that is to say as God sees it, not as we imagine it, 
we can make no mistake in saying that, if we have it, 
we have God's love. It is therefore also a sign of 
future election, just as pride is a sign of future re- 
jection. 

The next advantage of humility, perhaps the last 
I shall discuss, is tranquillity, or rest. Notice the 
words of our Savior: "Learn of me, because I am 
meek and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to 
your souls." It is not difficult to see that His last 
words are a conclusion drawn from His first. Who 
can then doubt it ? Who can then question it ? Rest 
to our souls, — that is the beautiful reward which He 
promises to our humility. He knew what a repugnant 
thing to our proud nature humility is. He knew what 



168 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

it would cost us to practice it. He knew what a bit- 
ter thing humihations are. And so He adds an 
immediate promise of reward. ''You shall find rest 
to your souls.'' And He does not limit the word rest 
It is to be a rest on earth, and a rest in Heaven; a 
rest for time, and a rest for eternity. It is difficult to 
imagine how He could have promised us anything 
better. Eternal rest is the promise made to all other 
virtues. But eternity is so far away; or at least it 
seems so far away. The treasures which it holds do 
not afifect us so much as those that lie immediately 
before us, and touch us as it were. Therefore it 
interests us greatly to find here a virtue with an 
immediate reward attached to it, and a reward so 
wonderful — rest to our souls. Let us try to look 
under the surface, and see what meaning there is to 
those words for us here on earth. Their meaning for 
eternity we know, and are not concerned with for the 
present. 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE REST OF HUMILITY 

IT seems to be a general law, to which there is no 
exception, that things are not at rest if they are 
out of their proper place. A bone that is out of 
joint is restless, and remains so until it is replaced. 
A fish is restless out of the water. A bird is restless 
out of the air. A worm is restless out of the earth. 
A root is restless if it is lifted into the air. A vine 
is restless when it is groveling on the ground. Every- 
thing is restless when it is out of its proper place. 
The heart of man is no exception to this rule. It is 
restless, terribly restless, when it ascends into an alti- 
tude that is not its own. See, for example, how the 
water acts when it is drawn by the strength of the 
sun away from the bosom of the ocean where it rests 
so quietly if there is nothing to disturb it. It climbs 
to a dizzy height in the sky, but can find no rest, and 
soon falls back to the earth in a restless shower of 
rain. See then how it gushes down the mountain- 
side with a violence of motion that carries everything 
with it that comes in its way. See how the rivers are 
restlessly rolling onward. Their waters are in con- 
tinual motion until finally they reach the bosom of 
the ocean, from which the dazzling sun had drawn 

159 



160 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

them away. That is an image and an illustration of 
the heart of man when it is drawn away from its 
proper level by the strength of some uplifting pride. 
It is in a ceaseless motion. It is in an endless agita- 
tion. It is in a never-diminishing restlessness. It is 
in a pain and an anguish which almost consume it. 
And the reason lies in its being away from where it 
ought to be. Let it descend to the depth of the ocean; 
that is to say, let it descend to the depth of its own 
nothingness: let it do that, and it will instantly re- 
cover its calm. From the abyss of nothing it is taken. 
Over that abyss it is held only by the out-stretched 
preserving hand of Omnipotence. What then does 
it mean by clasping the stars for their glory? What 
then does it mean by wandering through the heavens 
for its happiness? What then does it mean by aspir- 
ing to honors which belong only to Him who keeps it 
from annihilation? Is it any wonder that it is so 
agitated ? Is it any wonder that it is so troubled ? Is 
it any wonder that it is so disturbed and so restless? 
It is the lif ting-up from its level that delivers it to 
the tempest. It is the tearing-away from its anchor 
that sets it adrift on the wild ocean. Oh, how dif- 
ferent is the condition of him who is humble! Com- 
ing from nothing, he is content to be nothing. He 
labors hard and he aspires high ; but he has no ambi- 
tion to satisfy, except to give glory to Him to whom 
all glory belongs. For himself he is content with 
nothing — if God's approval of his staying in his place 
can be called nothing. But at any rate, he remains 
in his place, and is quiet. The tranquillity which he 



THE REST OF HUMILITY 161 

possesses both in his mind and in his heart, and of 
which no power in existence can deprive him, is worth 
infinitely more, even from a worldly point of view, 
than all the stolen honors of the great. And the 
peace which he enjoys is a peace which the proud have 
never tasted, nor even in fancied happiness ever 
dreamed of. 

Pride and self-love go hand in hand. Pride is the 
over-estimation of self. It sees nothing but the excel- 
lence of self. The consequence is that it loves self 
with an infatuated affection, and worships self with 
an idolatrous devotion. This exaggerated esteem of 
self and love of self are the source of all the unrest 
in the world, and of all the unrest in the life of man. 
They awaken desires that can never be satisfied, and 
arouse passions that can never be calmed. If you 
could take pride and self-love out of the world, all 
that wild unrest from which we are suffering so much 
at present would instantly vanish. And if you could 
take pride and self-love out of the life of man, that 
life would instantly assume a reposeful appearance, 
and become happy with all the happiness of a deep 
tranquillity. The proud heart is full of itself, thinks 
only of itself, refers all things to itself, and there- 
fore seeks its rest in itself. Self is the center around 
which all other things are supposed to revolve. But 
that is far from the order established by God. That 
is far from the expectation of others in the world. 
That is far from the possibility of realization. That 
is far from the truth and the true nature of things. 
God alone can find rest in Himself. He is the un- 



162 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

created and essential Existence. He alone has within 
Him all that He needs. Man is altogether different. 
He has a borrowed existence. He is essentially de- 
pendent. He has all his faculties from Another. He 
has all his perfections from Someone else. He has all 
his riches from outside. How is it possible then that 
he can make himself the center of observation, the 
center of attention, the center of attraction, the center 
around which all else is to revolve? Yet he does this 
if he is proud. He aims at what can never be. He 
is hungry for what he can never enjoy. He desires 
with a desire that can never be fulfilled. His lif ting- 
up of himself is like the rolling of a heavy stone up 
a steep hill-side. With a weary restlessness the stone 
must be constantly lifted ; and w^hen at last, after hours 
of ceaseless exertion, the strength of the toiler is spent, 
the stone falls back upon him, and crushes him be- 
neath its merciless weight. The lif ting-up of self is a 
similar task. It is an endless exertion without a re- 
sult, or rather with the result of self falling back upon 
self, with heart crushed and nerves all writhing with 
pain. 

Let us look a little more closely into the particulars 
of the proud man's life. By an observation only a 
trifle penetrating, we shall soon find how restless and 
unhappy he is. He is never content with his present 
condition. His mind is always laboring with some 
shrewd scheme or project for his advancement and 
elevation. If he fails, — and he usually fails, — he 
immediately finds another phantom to pursue; and 
if that also vanishes, he again goes in quest of an- 



THE REST OF HUMILITY 163 

other. He must ascend. He cannot remain where he 
is. Happiness is not here, but in yonder vision of 
glory. But alas! there are so many others striving 
for the same thing which he is aiming at. These must 
be thwarted. They are his hated rivals. Oh, how his 
heart becomes agitated with the dark passions of envy 
and jealousy! He begins to regard his rivals as 
enemies. And, to his consternation, he finds them so 
active, so ardent, so energetic, so skillful, and so 
resolute. He cannot believe though that they will be 
successful. At least he is going to see to it that they 
will not. He finds, however, that they display a power 
he did not dream of. His confidence begins to for- 
sake him. He trembles between fear and hope. His 
envy and his jealousy increase. His heart is tossed by 
his passions, as a boat on the high sea by the waves. 
Do you call that rest ? or what do you call it ? But let 
me suppose that he has succeeded. Let me suppose that 
he is in possession of all that he has aimed at. Is that 
then the end of his conflict ? Alas ! he has scarcely found 
time to compose his mind and to collect his thoughts, 
when he finds that he has not all he must have, that 
there is still something beyond, and that he must enter 
upon another struggle no less troublesome and pain- 
ful than the one he has just passed through. Still 
let me not suppose that. Let me say that he has 
attained his object, and that there is nothing beyond. 
Is he now at peace? Does he now enjoy anything like 
perfect repose? Alas, no! That is the thing which 
he can never find. His rivals are still alive; or, if 
they are not, there are others who take their places. 



164 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

But let me even suppose that there is nobody of that 
kind to trouble him. Still his own inner pride will 
not cease to agitate and to torture him. The touchi- 
ness and the irritableness and the vindictiveness of 
pride are well known. The most harmless words are 
understood in an offensive sense. The most innocent 
actions are interpreted as containing an affront. A 
mere look is sufficient to arouse a torturing suspicion. 
A mere gesture is enough to provoke an everlasting 
aversion. Every dream is a nightmare, and every 
shadow is a ghost. If you ever came into contact 
with jealousy, you will know what a restless and 
unhappy thing that is. If it were not so infinitely 
odious and contemptible, you would have to pity it. 
Just as restless and unhappy is pride, even when it is 
in possession of all its coveted honors. In fact, 
jealousy and envy are the children of pride, and have 
inherited their restless and unhappy nature from their 
miserable mother. And that pride never forgets an 
injury, and never forgives one. It is vindictive with 
all the vindictiveness of the devil. It revenges itself 
with injustice and cruelty, and then goes on hating 
after the revenge has been taken. A typical example 
of pride in all its unhappy restlessness is the Aman of 
Holy Scripture. He had been raised by his king to 
the highest rank. He had been entrusted with 
every power. He had been loaded with every honor. 
He had no equal, no rival; and he was the first man 
in the whole kingdom. Yet he was bored almost to 
death by the conduct of a poor Jew who would not 
bend his knee before him. He could not rest, he could 



THE REST OF HUMILITY 165 

not be happy, until he had brought ruin to Mardochai 
and his entire nation. How he over-reached himself, 
how he was humbled, how he himself had to honor the 
Mardochai whom he so hated, and how he was him- 
self hanged upon the very gallows which he had 
erected for his execution, — these are things we all 
know from the Scriptures; and these are the tortures 
which pride usually has to endure in its inner self, 
even if it does not end so unfortunately as did the 
proud Aman. 

From all that restless misery the humble are en- 
tirely free. There is no torture like the torture of 
self-love. And if that self-love dies in your heart, all 
its pains die with it. The humble man does not seek 
rest in himself. He knows and deeply realizes that 
in himself there is nothing to repose on. He feels 
how fast he would sink back into nothing if God did 
not hold him. His center of rest lies outside of him- 
self. And it does not lie in anything else that comes 
from nothing and tends to go back to nothing. His 
point of repose is on something stable and imperish- 
able. His center of rest is Almighty God. In Him 
he buries himself. In Him he forgets himself. In 
Him he loses himself. In Him he dwindles into in- 
significance. In Him he feels that God is everything, 
and that he is nothing. He does great things, but they 
are God's. They are done through Him. They are 
done for Him. They are His. There is no lifting up 
of self. Self is ignored. Self is forgotten. It sinks 
down into the bosom of God and is completely at rest. 
And then again this humble person has no phantom of 



166 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

glory to pursue. He has no happy possessor to sup- 
plant. He has no rivals to annihilate. He has no in- 
feriors to despise. His heart is not agitated, nay it 
is not even touched, by the dark passions of jealousy 
and envy and hatred. If things go ill, he is not greatly 
surprised at that; but rather he has been prepared for 
that. Of himself he does not expect anything. From 
the help of God he expects all things, if he has it; but 
he often wonders that he has it, he who is so unworthy 
of it. Failure must come to his efforts, if God is 
wanting; that he knows. So he finds it natural when 
it does come, and takes it without a murmur. It pains 
him, but it does not disconcert him. God's help was 
not there ; and God's will is his all. Nearly the same 
reasoning and nearly the same feeling support him 
when he is ill-treated and unjustly persecuted. What 
better, after all, does his nothingness deserve? And 
should his nothingness deserve something better, at 
least his sins do not. He has a large heart, and is 
more sorry for those who outrage him, for their sins, 
than he is angry with them for their injury. And 
then too he is of a forgiving and forgetting disposi- 
tion, and cannot harbor in his heart anything like a 
revengeful feeling to disturb it. He is not dull and 
insensitive by any means. Some think that that is a 
necessary attribute of humility. No, he is keenly 
alive to every infliction of pain, just as he is quickly 
intelligent to every meaning of an insult ; but his self- 
importance is not such as to make him think it neces- 
sary to avenge them. How all this tends towards 
repose; how all this keeps the noise of conflict out of 



THE REST OF HUMILITY 167 

the heart; how all this keeps the smoke of passion 
from the mind ; how all this keeps tranquillity in the 
soul; how all this preserves an inner peace and com- 
posure in the midst of outer disturbances, — must be 
evident to everybody who takes the time to think and 
to reflect. 

The humble, finally, find rest for their souls, be- 
cause both God and the world are pleased with them 
and bless them. We have the assurance of Scripture 
that ''God resisteth the proud." In what that resis- 
tance on the part of God will finally end for them, in 
what terrible overthrow and disaster, we all know. 
The time for that utter and irreparable rebuff is the 
hour of death. But even in life God's resistance to 
the proud is everywhere discernible. And it is not 
only to the great and the powerful that He offers this 
resistance. He offers it to all that are proud. They 
are so confident of success, and then utterly fail. They 
aspire to such lofty things, and then suddenly sink 
below their own level. They glory in their greatness, 
like a Nabuchodonosor in his Babylon; and then they 
are humbled to a depth scarcely less deep than that in 
which Nabuchodonosor lived, for seven long years, 
when he herded with the beasts of the field, stricken 
with a strange disease, growing feathers on his body 
like an eagle, and eating hay and grass like an ox. 
And when God resists the proud, as He so often does, 
by repulsing them from the object of their desires, 
and by humbling them from one depth to another, 
not alone their enemies are pleased, but the world in 
general seems to take a vindictive pleasure in con- 



168 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

templating their miseries. And the reason why the 
world does this is plain. So odious and offensive 
pride always is that the world can hardly help re- 
joicing when it sees it fall. So neither from God nor 
from the world have the proud any rest or peace to 
expect. But the humble God loves; and the world 
loves them no less than God. The more they descend 
down into the depth of their own nothingness, the 
more does God follow them and keep them in affec- 
tionate remembrance. If He leaves them to their 
humiliations for a time, it is only for a time, and only 
for the purpose that He may crown them with a 
greater glory when at last He comes to lift them up. 
Look at the history of the Egyptian Joseph as an 
exemplification of this truth. Hated by his brethren, 
sold into slavery, calumniated by a woman, and cast 
into prison, he seemed to be abandoned and forgotten 
by God. But he was not. He did not complain of 
his fate. He was not impatient in his misery. He 
did not rebel against Providence. And God loved him 
for his humility. When the time came, He raised 
him to the viceroyalty of Egypt, and gave him an 
imperishable place in the memory of mankind. His 
humility secured for him, not only the love of God, 
but also the love of his country and the love of the 
world. And that is the history of humility usually. 
It may be less known, it is true ; but it will be loved 
none the less by those who know it. We even find 
that everything is forgiven to humility — all its faults 
and all its frailties. The world, which is so seldom 
just, tries to be just to it. Why, even envy is dis- 



THE REST OF HUMILITY 169 

armed by its winning unpretentiousness, and magnifies 
its talents and accomplishments far beyond what they 
really are. That is the way humility finds rest com- 
ing to it from without, from both God and the world. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
HUMILITY'S LOVE OF OBSCURITY 

BUT to the world it ought not to look for 
acknowledgment of any kind. If it does, it 
instantly loses its claim to rest and peace from 
that quarter. The rest and the peace are accorded only 
when no acknowledgment is looked for. It is for 
pride to pose before the world and to win its applause. 
It is for humility to hide itself in silence and obscurity. 
The world is full of storms and tempests; and with 
its own wild restlessness it fills the hearts of its lovers. 
Happiest is he who has nothing to do with the world 
— happiest he of whose very name and existence the 
world is ignorant. To chase after renown is a tire- 
some undertaking; and to maintain a renown once 
won is a task more tiresome still. Oh, for that beauti- 
ful humility which is content to dwell in forgotten- 
ness and obscurity! Oh, for the happy and holy 
solitude of a life all hidden in God! But alas! are 
there any souls left in the world who can appreciate 
that sentiment? Are there any souls left in the 
world whom I can hope to fill with this longing? 
Some there are, thank God; but their number is de- 
plorably small. The great multitude believes in the 
promises of pride, is infatuated with its delusive 

170 



HUMILITY'S LOVE OF OBSCURITY 171 

splendors, and contented with its restless pinings. The 
great multitude does not believe, or at least it does 
not understand, the words of our Savior when He 
tells us, that the humble alone shall find rest to their 
souls. 

It is many years ago that I came across a beautiful 
illustration of this humility flying away from the 
notice and the honors and the admiration of the 
world, and finding its rest in forgottenness and 
obscurity. It is many years ago ; but the deep impres- 
sion which I then received has never been effaced 
from my edified and interested memory. Peter Paul 
Rubens, the celebrated Flemish painter, accompanied 
by his disciple Van Dyck, came one day to a convent 
of monks in a suburb of Madrid. He was astonished 
to find, hanging there on the wall, a picture of such 
rare beauty that he himself, famed over all Europe 
as he was for his art, could not help envying the genius 
and the skill of him who had produced that master- 
piece. And who can the painter be? was the first 
thought which arose in the minds of both Rubens and 
Van Dyck. They noticed, after admiring the picture 
for a while, that a name had been written below, but 
had again been erased. Rubens sent for the prior, 
and asked him for the name of the artist. But the 
unsatisfactory answer which he received was, that he 
was no longer of the world, and that his name must 
forever remain unmentioned and unknown. 'Ts he 
dead," said the celebrated artist, "and his name still 
unknown?'' "You do not understand me correctly," 
said the prior; "he is a man who has renounced the 



172 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

world and is living an obscure life as a monk in some 
convent." 'If he is a monk in some convent, and 
still alive, he must instantly come out/' said the great 
painter, "for the convent is not a place for him. Why, 
Father Prior, let me tell you, if you do not know it, 
that that man is an artist whose genius over-shadows 
mine; and I am Peter Paul Rubens. He must come 
out of his convent. I must carry his name before the 
world. It must be made illustrious. It must be made 
immortal. I will ask the Pope to give him a dispensa- 
tion from his vows ; and the Pope will grant me my 
request, for he dearly loves me." At these words a 
strong and deep emotion shook the heart of the poor 
prior. His hands were seen to tremble with embar- 
rassment. A burning blush passed over his face. He 
bade a hurried adieu to Rubens and Van Dyck, and 
returned to his cell. There he looked, regretfully and 
for the last time, at his brushes and colors and easel, 
and then flung them out of his window into the river 
below. His heart ached for a moment as he gazed 
upon the water to which he had delivered his treasure, 
and which bore it fast and forever away. When it 
was out of sight, he looked at his crucifix. It seemed 
sweeter than ever. He sank upon his knees before it. 
He hid himself in his Savior's heart. Let the great 
world caress its darlings. Let it bestow its smiles 
upon its favorites. Let it reverberate with the name 
and the fame of its dear ones. Let it entrance them 
with its affection. Let it dazzle and dizzy them with 
its admiration. What is it, after all, but 'Vanity and 
vexation of spirit"? Infinitely better it is, and in- 



HUMILITY'S LOVE OF OBSCURITY 173 

finitely sweeter, to bury yourself in the restful 
obscurity of a life all hidden in God. I have told this 
affecting anecdote in my own way and in my own 
words. The substance of it is truthfully given, though 
the rest may be all my own. The more than twenty 
years during which it grew old in my memory have 
not taken away, so at least it appears to me, any of 
its interest and freshness and beauty. If I have added 
a charm here or there, which I do not however think 
is the case, the generous reader who knows it will 
forgive me my freedom. 

And now, before coming to a close on this subject 
of obscurity and its blessedness, let me show the 
reader what I had to say about this same thing, on a 
certain occasion, quite a number of years ago. I had 
my subject at heart; of that I am certain. Those to 
whom I addressed my words were dear to me with 
even more than the usual dearness of children. I was 
sending them out into the world; and I was anxious, 
as only a father can be, about their future welfare 
and happiness. Sincerity and conviction therefore 
heaved in my heart as I spoke; and it may be then 
too that they gave a peculiar life to my words. I 
spoke for and to my high-school graduates. The 
following is an extract of my speech: 

I rejoice wath the graduates. They are full of hope, 
full of expectation; and not for anything would I 
deprive them of the charm which lies in that thought 
and feeling. The charms of life fade fast enough; 
and I should do a poor service to my children, if I 
tried to make those charms fade faster still. But it 



174 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

must be remembered that there are two kinds of 
charms thrown around a young life in the world. 
There is the charm which God gives, the charm of 
youth and bloom and strength and grace and virtue. 
And there is the charm which the devil gives, the 
charm of self-idolatry and pride and passion. The 
charm which is a gift of God is good and true, and 
may be loved, and should be appreciated. The charm 
which is a gift of the devil is deceitful and wicked, 
and should be despised and hated and disowned, no 
matter how splendid it may appear or how admired 
it may be. God's charm is truth. Keep it; cherish 
it ; love it ; rejoice in it. The devil's charm is delusion. 
Renounce it; dispel it; damn it: for that is what it 
deserves. I wish that I could say something to throw 
God's charm, and no other, over and around the young 
lives that are going out from this stage into the world 
to-night. But all the persuasive eloquence of passion 
speaks against me; and where you have passion for 
your opponent, it is difficult to convince. Still I will 
state what I have to say, and leave it to God to give 
effectiveness to my words. 

Two things I would place before the graduates as 
constituting the chief charm of their young lives — 
modesty and industry. The kernel of modesty is self« 
forgetfulness. Love of retirement, love of obscurity, 
— that is the best and surest way to the virtue of 
modesty. If you are content to remain unknown and 
unobserved in the world; if you are content to use 
your talent only for God's glory, never for your own ; 
if you are content to perform your task in life un- 



HUMILITY'S LOVE OF OBSCURITY 175 

noticed by others; if you are content to be useful 
without acknowledgment from anybody except from 
your conscience and your God, — in that case you have 
the charm of modesty about you, a strange and sweet 
and wonderful charm. No one will speak about you. 
No one will praise you. No one will express any 
admiration for you. And do you know why ? Simply 
because the charm of your life is too sacred to be 
dealt with after that fashion. The tongue of flattery 
has nothing to say about you. But the heart of sin- 
cerity is full of a deep and silent devotion for your 
character. 

If you are a lover of nature, just look at God's 
creation for a moment. Where are His most wonder- 
ful works to be found ? Not in the cities, where mul- 
titudes might admire them. Not in the centers of 
civilization, where they could draw upon themselves 
the gaze of hundreds and of thousands. But away 
off in the wilderness, where some solitary traveler has 
gone out of his way to enjoy them, or where some lone 
lover of nature has lost himself to be enraptured by 
their beauty. And God is better pleased with the 
traveler's tribute and the lone lover's affection than 
He would be with the dull gaze of the vast but 
frivolous multitude. That may be the reason why 
He hides His treasures. But at any rate. He hides 
them. And I would rather be a wild flower in the 
wilderness, blooming for God alone who made me, 
and for some lonely soul whose love of beauty had 
found me out, than a proud rose in some public 
garden, blushing for everybody, and wasting my bloom 



176 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

and fragrance on the careless crowd that passes by. 
This is an illustration of what I mean by God's charm, 
which is modesty, and by the devil's charm, which is 
vanity. It looks so lonesome to drop into obscurity 
and non-observation. It looks so beautiful to rise 
into prominence and to gain attention. But the devil 
has us under a delusion — under the delusion of vanity. 
Even the world knows that there Is no genuine worth 
and no real charm to vanity. She gazes upon it, and 
she talks about it, and she is full of praise and flattery 
for it; but her secret admiration and her silent love 
are for the amiableness of modesty. This is a truth 
which the dullest observer must have noticed. And 
I wish the graduates to take their affectionate leave 
of their school and their teachers, with this truth deep 
in their hearts. With it, not only God, but also finally 
the world, will love them. Without it, even the best 
gifts of mind and body cannot make them amiable 
for any length of time. The desire to be amiable is 
a legitimate desire. The trouble is that we do not 
seem to know where and how that amiableness is to 
be found. It is to be found in contentment with com- 
mon and ordinary things, in retirement, in obscurity, 
in self-forgetfulness, in everything that is opposed to 
vanity and pride. 

Thus, or at least somewhat thus, ran a portion of 
my address to my dear children a few years ago. I 
thought it a fitting close to my affectionate care over 
them as children of my school ; and I think it a fitting 
close to my disquisition on humility. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
PEACE OF HEART 

IN connection with the rest which Jesus promises 
to our souls for the practice of humiHty, and 
upon which I dwelt at considerable length, I 
would like to say a few words on the peace of heart 
in general. When our Savior bade adieu to His dear 
ones, He gave them His peace. *'My peace I leave 
with you, my peace I give unto you ; not as the world 
giveth, do I give unto you." He meant to give them 
a treasure almost dearer than Himself. The world 
had it in its power to take the life of Jesus, to take 
Him away from the eyes and ears of His friends; 
but it could not take Him out of their heart. There 
He remained in the form of a deep and blessed peace. 
This peace He gives also to us if we only want and 
know how to receive it. This peace is from within, 
and so deeply fixed in our souls that no disturbance 
from without can ever reach it. No power on earth 
can unseat it. It lies beyond the touch of misfortune. 
Not even the malice of the devil can disturb it. The 
fallen Wolsey, of whose ambition I had occasion to 
speak before, confessed that in all his glory he never 
had it, that he found it amidst his misfortunes, and 
that in all his sufferings he never lost it. When asked 

177 



178 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

by his faithful servant, at the time when disgrace 
after disgrace had fallen upon him, how he was, he 
answered: 'Why, well; never so truly happy, my 
good Cromwell. I know myself now; and I feel 
within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still 
and quiet conscience." 

Look into the world and watch its struggles. See 
the hurrying to and fro of its restless millions. What 
does it all mean? What do they aim at? What are 
they after? It might puzzle you if you were not one 
of that countless throng yourself. You need but look 
into your own heart and into your own life to find 
the answer to those questions. They are chasing 
after the same thing as you; and you are chasing 
after the same thing as they. The one calls it this, 
and the other calls it that. A thousand different things 
they seem to aim at; and a thousand different ends 
they seem to pursue. But in essence there is but one 
object upon which their desires are fixed; and that 
object is this — peace of heart. They may be mis- 
taken, and unfortunately they usually are mistaken, 
about the object upon which they repose their hope of 
peace; but peace is really the thing they want. Can 
wealth bestow it? Can honor give it? Can admira- 
tion hand it to you ? Can requited affection bless you 
with it? Everybody has a theory of his own on those 
questions; and everybody tries to answer them after 
his own fashion; and everybody's life contains his 
own answer. But the answer which his life gives is 
usually that of his ruling passion. Seldom is it that 
of reason and faith and grace. But whatever the 



PEACE OF HEART 179 

answer may be, however far from the truth it may 
hit, it is always correct in this, that it aims at perfect 
peace of heart. Peace of heart we are made for. 
Peace of heart, under some shape or form, is our 
dream and ambition. Peace of heart, when once 
fully attained, is our happiness. But the fact remains 
that few find it. And but few find it, because the 
great crowd are blind, and do not know where it keeps 
itself. 

What is peace? St. Augustine defines it as the 
tranquillity of order. If you have order in your life, 
in your heart, in your conscience, you have peace, 
peace undisturbed and undisturbable, peace in the 
midst of misfortunes and calamities, peace in spite of 
the death-blows that are aimed at it by your persecut- 
ing enemies. Wolsey was right when from the depth 
of his fall he exclaimed: ''I feel within me now a 
peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet con- 
science." In God there is order, supreme and perfect 
order. He is order itself, essential and substantial 
order. He could no more lose it than He could lose 
His existence. That is the reason why He is in pos- 
session, within Himself, of an infinite peace and of 
an infinite happiness. And that is the reason then too 
why those who partake of His own nature and life, 
the saints and the angels, partake of His own repose 
and of His own blessedness. But that tranquillity of 
order which exists in heaven, constituting the peace 
and happiness of God and His elect, is begun on earth 
in the wills of men when they conform themselves to 
the will of God. Order in God is His own nature; 



180 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

order outside of God is His holy will. Wherever 
that Will prevails, there is order. Wherever it does 
not prevail, there is disorder. And in the order, even 
here on earth, there is peace, and consequently happi- 
ness ; and in the disorder, even here on earth, there is 
disturbance, and consequently misery. But God's will 
appeals to you, and makes itself known to you and 
felt by you, in a threefold manner — through reason, 
through faith, and through direct inspirations and 
impulses of grace. There may be some delusion about 
God's will as coming to you in direct movements of 
grace. But there can be little delusion about His 
will as manifested to you through reason and revela- 
tion. To each of these expressions of God's will you 
can offer resistance, and thus provoke disorder; or 
with each of them you can come into conformity, and 
thus bring about order and harmony. 

Turn now your eyes within and see what is there. 
Is your heart calm, or is it troubled? And if it is 
troubled, can you point to the cause? Is it perhaps 
laboring under a load of self-reproach? Is it per- 
haps agitated with some guilty fear? Is it perhaps 
filled with unsatisfied desires? Is it perhaps afraid to 
examine itself and to sound its own depths? Is it 
in any way dissatisfied with its present condition? Is 
it full of a paining disquietude? Is it loath to be alone 
and with itself? Is it tortured with anxiety? Is it 
torn with remorse? If so, or if so only in a measure 
and in a manner, it is a sign that you are not in order, 
and a certainty that you are not in peace. The dis- 
order and the want of peace go hand in hand. The dis- 



PEACE OF HEART 181 

order consists in the upsetting of God's will in your 
life; and the disorder is greater or smaller according 
to the greater or lesser defeat of God's will. And the 
greater your disorder is, the greater is also the want 
of your peace and the corresponding trouble of your 
heart. But if everything in you is submissive to God, 
cheerfully and completely submissive, everything in 
you will be in perfect order, in perfect tranquillity, in 
perfect repose, and in perfect peace. 

The essential order of your heart consists in sancti- 
fying grace. If God's will is so far established in your 
life that you do not overthrow it with a mortal sin, 
you have essential peace. You have essential peace 
because you have God. But that essential peace may 
have many imperfections. There may be many pas- 
sions not wholly subdued, many desires not wholly 
restrained, many fears not wholly conquered, many 
inclinations and aversions of nature not carefully 
regulated. In other words, the essential order may 
be there; but the dominion of God's will is not su- 
preme; and so the order in your soul is not faultless, 
and the peace of your heart is not perfect. Let grace 
be enthroned in your soul; let it rule with an unre- 
sisted power; let it find submission in the smallest 
matter and to the last detail — then, and then only, will 
there be an order without the faintest disturbance, and 
peace without the shadow of a trouble. But that is a 
condition that cannot be arrived at so long as nature 
is allowed a single indulgence to the prejudice of grace. 
If there is one disorderly and immortified affection, 
if there is one slightly sinful and unconquered passion. 



188 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

if there is a single uncorrected little weakness of will, 
the dominion of grace is imperfect. And where that 
dominion is imperfect, order is imperfect; and peace 
must be imperfect also. But peace we want ; not peace 
of any kind, but peace to perfection. Our peace is 
our happiness. And who of us could be contented 
with a happiness that is less than perfection. Let me 
now address myself to those who mean well, and I 
want to include myself in their number. Shall I tell 
you what the great mistake of our life consists in? 
It consists in this, — ^that we do not resolutely reach 
down into our hearts and tear out with its roots the 
last petty passion, the last petty attachment, the last 
petty disturbance to our repose, to our peace and to 
our happiness. We want to compromise just a little 
with the world, just a little with nature, just a little 
with pride, just a little with the devil; and the result 
is that our consciences are never at ease, our hearts 
never at rest, our happiness never perfect, and our 
hope for eternity never so consoling as it ought to be. 
Some little freedom our self-love would have after 
restraints so unmeasured, some little claim after sac- 
rifices so great, some little indulgence after mortifica- 
tions so painful; and the outcome is that we win so 
wretchedly little, and lose so ineffably much — win an 
insignificant little ease or a miserable little pleasure, 
and lose a tranquillity and peace of heart which is 
worth more than all the world beside. "I feel within 
me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet 
conscience." 

This peace, like so many another peace in the world, 



PEACE OF HEART 183 

is usually the fruit of a long and stubborn conflict. 
But the fiercest conflict may be maintained, strange 
as it may sound to say it, for many years after that 
peace is in perfect possession. If God is in the heart, 
the conflict with evil, terrible as it may seem, is only 
on the surface of the soul. Its depth is never disturbed. 
Look at the ocean. The storm sweeps over it. The 
billows rise and roll and undulate. But in its depth 
the waters do not move. So is it also with the soul 
when filled in its profoundest depths with a peace that 
comes from God. That peace is perfectly compatible 
with storm and tempest, with the lifting of its billows 
by the passions and with the pressure of temptation 
from the world. It looks as if it were disturbed; it 
feels as if it were disturbed; but the disturbance is 
only on the surface; in its depth there is a holy calm. 
That calm is its very strength in the conflict, and its 
very hope for victory over all its enemies. But there 
is one thing that reaches down into the depths of the 
soul and disturbs its peace even there; and that one 
thing is sin. Let the will give way ; let grace depart ; 
let conscience be disquieted: and the soul will be 
agitated to its depths. Unhappy soul if you are con- 
tent to pass your life in that condition! 

The peace of charity, or the peace of sanctifying 
grace, is possessed by many; but the peace of per- 
fection, the peace of a full submission to God's will, 
the peace of a ready correspondence with every grace, 
is an extremely rare thing. Yet it is so profound a 
joy, so exquisite and blessed a rest, so great and so 
hidden a happiness, that those who once possess it, 



184 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

find every sacrifice they made for it a mere trifle, and 
every self-denial to retain it a privilege rather than a 
trouble. 

That wonderful peace God usually gives only 
after years of ceaseless prayer and self -conquest, so 
priceless a treasure it is. But sometimes, and by way 
of exception, He bestows it upon souls still in the 
infancy of their perfection. All at once they have it. 
Everything is so calm and still. Everything is so 
filled with sunshine and joy. Everything is so delight- 
fully easy. Everything is undertaken with pleasure. 
Everything is done without effort. They are in- 
undated with a sort of heavenly bliss. They feel 
a strange rest and a strange rapture, and do not know 
from what and from where all that happiness comes. 
Their passions are silent. The world does not lure 
them. The devil does not trouble them. They are 
good without trial. They stumble over no obstacles. 
Their life flows on like a vision, with nothing of the 
hard reality of the world in it — flows on like some 
beautiful dream of Paradise. But all this has a pur- 
pose. God does not bestow such favors unmerited 
without an object. And the object usually is to pre- 
pare those chosen souls for a life of terrible trouble 
and tribulation. How could they pass through it all 
if God had not furnished them with the inspiration 
and strength of His holy peace? But this is not the 
rule. This peace is usually the price of a great 
fidelity to grace, and of self-conquest carried to the 
point of perfection. 

This is the wonderful peace of a carefully purified 



PEACE OF HEART 185 

conscience. It is a peace that must be tasted to be 
appreciated at its full value. It is a "peace above all 
earthly dignities," a peace that gives us all, secures 
us all, and is within the reach of all; but a peace that 
seldom, very seldom, is possessed. 

Let us now cast a hasty glance at the pretended 
peace of the world. The world has also a peace of 
its own to promise. If it had not, nobody would care 
for the world. But the peace which it promises is 
opposed to the peace of God. Its peace is the peace 
of satisfied passion, of satisfied pride, of satisfied self- 
love. It is a peace that does not descend to the depth 
of the soul. It calms, or rather it only seems to calm, 
a few of its waves on the surface. There is a certain 
peace in the satisfaction of an appetite. There is a 
certain peace in the senses at the moment when a 
great pleasure has ravished them. There is a certain 
peace in the heart when some coveted admiration 
comes to it, or when the praises and flatteries which 
it so much relishes sweep sweetly and soothingly over 
it. There is a certain peace in the mind when its 
dream is realized and the object of its ambition suc- 
cessfully reached and secured. That peace the world 
promises to give ; and it often gives it. But it is not 
a real peace. It is not a peace that goes to the bottom 
or penetrates to the center. It is not a peace that 
has substance. It is not a peace that is stable. It is 
not a peace that is lasting. It is a peace in appearance ; 
and that is all it is. It is like an opiate given to the 
nerves. The opiate calms, or rather stupefies, for a 
moment; and then, when its effect is over, it leaves 



186 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

the awakening nerves more morbidly restless than 
before. Thus is it also with the peace of the world. 
It is really not a peace, but a paralyzation and a 
stupefaction. When the pleasure is gone with which 
the sense was filled, the restlessness is again as great 
and as painful as ever. The momentary quiet which 
lies in the satisfaction of a stormy passion is the most 
delusive calm ever experienced in the world. It is 
almost as quickly gone as begun ; and when it is gone, 
there is nothing left but tumult and agitation. And 
besides that, there is usually a feeling of weariness 
and disgust, nay even sometimes of despair. And 
what else is that but unhappiness and misery? Yet 
that is the pretended peace of the world. You have 
tried all the various objects which the world offers 
to your passions, to your self-love, to your pride; 
you have tried them all, and they all have deceived 
you. You were to find your peace in them; and you 
found disappointment. The joys which they gave 
you soon changed into sorrows; and the calm which 
they brought you soon ended in renewed agitation. 
The desires of your soul they did not quiet; and the 
hunger of your heart they did not still. Emptiness 
and weariness and loneliness they left you. All your 
lifetime you believed in the world. All your lifetime 
you chased after the alluring peace which it promised. 
And all your lifetime you must have felt that you 
were running after a phantom and a shadow. You 
began with sanguinely hoping for every consolation; 
and you end with utterly despairing of your hap- 
piness. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
REMARKS 

I DO not think that this picture is over-drawn. 
Rather I think that I should have drawn it in 
colors more lively and decided still. What a 
contrast between the two pictures of the two kinds of 
peace! You want to be happy, dear reader — do you 
not? I have tried to show you where your happiness 
lies. I have tried to warn you against the error which 
so many make of imagining their happiness to be 
where it is not. I have little hope to be heard. Every- 
body in the world is running to and fro. Everybody 
in the world wants to be seen. Everybody in the 
world wants to mingle with the crowd. Everybody 
in the world is talking of "dying with loneliness" if 
he is compelled to be alone for a few days. Every- 
body in the world loves excitement. Everybody in the 
world is fond of fashion. Everybody in the world is 
intent on pleasure. I may as well say it all in a single 
sentence: everybody in the world loves the world. 
And we usually believe those we love. Therefore my 
conclusion is that everybody believes the world, be- 
lieves in the peace which it promises, in that peace 
which I have just tried to show you to be so empty 
and so vain. That is what I meant by saying that I 

187 



188 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

have but little hope to be heard. Yet there may be, 
somewhere where I do not suspect it, in some lonely 
chamber where my book may enter, in some seques- 
tered nook where it is read, some precious soul that 
understands me and believes me and is thankful for 
my teaching. I am writing for my God, who will 
reward me even if I do not find a single reader. But 
I do not pretend to an indifference which I have not. 
I am writing also to be read. Yet this I can sincerely 
say, — that the single appreciation of a single precious 
reader would be quite sufficient to requite me for my 
pains. I spoke at length of the beautiful and happy 
peace of God. I did not paint it half so beautiful 
as in truth it is. But I trust that someone, or if pos- 
sible some few, may be fascinated with what love- 
liness I gave it. And to win them more completely 
for it, I tried, with just one movement of the hand, 
to brush away the deceitful glitter from that pre- 
possessing peace of the world which attracts so many. 
If I did succeed, as I hope that I did, let the kind 
reader, for the benefit received, send up to God just 
one deep sigh for mercy on the writer. 

With the last chapter I wanted to end my talk on 
humility. The peace in general which I there briefly 
described bears great resemblance to the rest which 
Jesus promises to the humble when He says: *Xearn 
of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart; and 
you shall find rest to your souls.'* That was the 
reason why I spoke of that peace in connection with 
humility. I would now like to add a few observations 
on something else, which, I think, has an intimate con- 



REMARKS 189 

nection with humility — on that which is its most beau- 
tiful fruit and its last perfection — on simplicity. I will 
take my remarks from a tract which I wrote more than 
a dozen years ago. I had the intention of portraying 
humility, in my closing chapter about it, in all its 
beauty and in all its loveliness. I had the intention of 
showing, from actual life as it were, how amiable and 
attractive it makes the character of its possessor. I had 
the intention of combining it with chastity, in the rep- 
resentation of a living, breathing personality if pos- 
sible; and to show that it is in their power, but espe- 
cially in that of humility, to bestow an irresistible 
charm. I had the intention of illustrating how humility 
is in possession of that wonderful secret which we all 
would like to know, — ^thc secret of making oneself 
lovable and loved. But, as all this is to a considerable 
extent shown in that tract, I will content myself with 
copying from it. I remember writing it with a pencil 
on a scrap of old paper, on a sunny day among the 
pine trees of the mountains, where I was straying on 
my summer vacation, in quest of my health. From 
that old manuscript, scarcely legible to-day, I will take 
what I think is to the point. Here it is: 



CHAPTER XXIX 
SIMPLICITY 

THERE are two dispositions lying at the root of 
truthfulness — sincerity and simplicity. Both 
these dispositions are good; but the one is 
much better than the other. Sincerity is found in 
many; simplicity, in few. Sincerity is a necessary 
condition for simplicity. Simplicity is far more than 
sincerity. Simplicity is sanctity itself. Sincerity will 
fit you to deal honorably with your fellow-man. Sim- 
plicity will make you a saint, and fit you to deal freely 
with God. It is not easy to get a correct and dfstinct 
notion of these two virtues. Let me try to explain 
what I mean by them. 

Sincerity, as opposed to simplicity, or rather as 
compared with it, is confined to mere truthfulness. 
It consists in showing oneself to others without deceit. 
It presents itself in the clearest light. It arranges 
Itself, so to speak, for the gaze of others. It takes 
pains to be correct. Self-consciousness is therefore 
its very life and soul; and self-consciousness (I am 
not afraid to say it even here) is not very far removed 
from pride. Sincerity aims at a correct presentation 
of itself. It is therefore in the act of posing for a 
picture. It does not want to appear what it is not; 
but it cannot forget that it is in the act of appearing. 

190 



SIMPLICITY 191 

It is therefore, if I may use the expression, full of 
itself. Self is the starting point of its considerations. 
Self is never forgotten Self is the end to which all 
things are referred. They are referred to self, not 
for a bad purpose; but still they are referred to self. 
Hence it is that it is so reserved, so stiff, so guarded 
in its movements, and so measured in its expressions. 
It is full of concern about what it has done. It is full 
of concern about what it will do. It is conscious of 
its dignity. It is touchy about points of honor and 
etiquette. It is keenly sensitive to slander and calumny. 
It shows itself as it is ; but, just because it does that, 
it wants to be appreciated at its full value. It is good 
as far as it goes; but it does not go far enough to 
make itself amiable and attractive. We feci in its 
presence that we cannot reproach it; but we feel also 
that there is much wanting in its character to make 
it congenial. It is too self-conscious, too unnatural, 
too artificial, to be pleasing. 

This is, as well as I can give it, sincerity bare and 
naked, without any addition to it. It is infinitely 
better than deceit ; but it is not that beauty of character 
which we sometimes find, and which, when we do 
find it, has such a wonderful power to charm and to 
win. It is wanting in simplicity, and that is the reason 
it is so far removed from perfection. We are glad 
to find it in strangers; but in our friends, in those 
to whom we want to open our hearts with a greater 
freedom, we look for something more. Now, God 
has His friends; and, no doubt. He feels about them 
very much as we feel about ours. He wants to find 



192 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

in them, besides the sincerity which must not be want- 
ing, also the more amiable virtue of simplicity. 

Now in what does that consist ? It does not consist 
in that unreasoning and foolish credulity to which the 
name of simplicity is given in ordinary life. It is not 
stupidity, as it is often taken to be; but, on the con- 
trary it is the most vivid apprehension of religious 
truth in practical life. I have described sincerity to you 
in its restricted and limited meaning. I would describe 
simplicity as the highest kind of sincerity, as sincerity 
advanced to perfection, as sincerity so concerned about 
God as to completely lose sight of itself. And the 
more it loses sight of itself, the easier, the freer, and 
the more natural, its conduct towards God will become. 
That is the reason we find in the lives of some of the 
saints a familiarity with God that almost shocks us. 
The more stiff and reserved we are in the presence 
of a friend, the less will he enjoy and value our com- 
pany. The greater our ease and freedom and natural- 
ness, even in the presence of the greatest personage, 
the more graceful and charming and amiable we shall 
be. The awkwardness and reserve come from self- 
consciousness ; the ease and freedom, from self-ob- 
livion. The freedom of a self-conscious person is 
offending in the extreme. It is arrogance. The free- 
dom of a self -oblivious soul is beautiful and charming. 
It is simplicity. 

It will therefore not do to take liberties with Al- 
mighty God, and then to imagine that you have sim- 
plicity. You must first forget yourself in your card 
about Him; you must lose yourself in Him, as it were: 



SIMPLICITY 193 

then your conduct towards Him will become free and 
natural without being offensive; then you will take 
liberties with Him without rudeness; then you will 
be agreeable in His sight because of your simplicity. 

That, of course, means a great deal. It means self- 
obliteration to an unusual degree. It means self- 
renunciation and self-denial to an almost incredible 
extent. It is, as I have said, the losing of oneself 
in God. No wonder then that simplicity is so rare, 
and that simple souls are so few. Such souls come 
to God without ceremony. They think too little of 
themselves to do otherwise. They go forward with a 
freedom and an intrepidity that are astonishing. They 
feel their littleness, and are conscious of their un- 
worthiness, not because they reflect upon themselves, 
but because they have very vivid conceptions of the 
majesty, the purity, and the sanctity of God. They 
feel in His presence as the infant feels in its mother's 
arms, — secure and cared-for and happy. Like the in- 
fant, they feel their helplessness; but they are not 
afraid. Their confidence in God is boundless. They 
nestle on His bosom as it were. They put their arms 
around Him, and have no further care. In that child- 
like conduct of theirs, the thought of being deceitful 
never occurs to them. They have nothing to hide. 
They show themselves as they are. They allow both 
God and the world to look, if they choose to do so, 
to the very bottom of their hearts. 

That is, as well as I can describe it, the virtue of 
simplicity. It presupposes all the other virtues, and 
is the sum of them all. It is perfection. It is sanctity. 



CHAPTER XXX 
CLOSING WORDS 

I THINK that in the foregoing extract the reader 
could find, without difficulty, the points of re- 
semblance between simplicity and humility. The 
truthfulness, the self-forgetfulness, and the centering 
of all thought upon God, are the characteristic features 
of both. Humility is the beginning, and simplicity is 
the end. Humility is the soil in which all the other 
virtues thrive and grow. Simplicity is the harvest 
field in which they have come to maturity. Humility 
is in them all. Simplicity is the sum and crown of 
them all. 

I said that I would give the foregoing extract, in- 
stead of staging chastity and humility before the eyes 
of the reader, as I had originally intended, to show 
their beauty and their loveliness. So this ought to 
close my tribute to them. It was a task of intense 
affection to write about them. I can hardly put away 
my pen. I can hardly bid adieu to my toil. It sweet- 
ened the hot hours of July for me. This is the 
twenty-eighth; and on the first I began. My con- 
science tells me — and I hope it does not lie — that this 
is the best July through which I ever passed. A sort 
of dream comes over me; and I see two angels stand- 

194 



CLOSING WORDS 195 

ing at my deathbed, — Chastity and Humility. So often 
I had pained them. So often I had slighted them. 
So often I had humbled them. But amidst all my 
lapses I had loved them. For nearly fifty years I had 
pined for them. For nearly fifty years I had prayed 
for them. At last I attempted a little task in honor 
of them. I took it up, I carried it on, I finished it, 
in a month which I had set aside for my rest and my 
pleasure. For that honest effort in their honor, no 
matter what the fate of my book may be, I see those 
angels, come to me in my supreme hour of distress 
to console me. It is a dream now — a lovely dream; 
but let it not be a dream, O my God ! when the time 
has arrived. 

So now I leave you. Chastity and Humility. I will 
not introduce you as living figures upon the stage 
before I leave you. But I will rapidly pass over the 
stage, before the eyes of my readers, three figures, 
to illustrate, on the one hand the disgrace of your 
failure, when you fail; and on the other hand the 
glory of your success when you succeed. The first 
figure represents the course of pride; the second, the 
course of impurity; and the third, the course of chas- 
tity and humility. I again make an extract. It is 
taken from an address which I delivered a few years 
ago on the occasion of a play. It runs as follows : 

Not long ago I happened to be invited to the home 
of a family in which, after the lapse of nearly forty 
years, there was a reunion of its members. I had 
been in that same home on a festive occasion, before 
the older children went away into the world, to make 



196 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

their fortune. The oldest of those to leave was a 
handsome young man, who was very popular in the 
community, and of whom his parents were extremely 
proud. He was the lion of the hour, the center of 
observation; and I remember distinctly how full of 
joy and hope and ambition he was. A few days later 
the parting came. Everybody's eyes flowed over when 
he said good-by. He too was softened a trifle; but 
his expectations were so great, and his pride so tri- 
umphant, that he had but little feeling left for regret. 
Somewhere in the far West his parents had found 
him a home. He went away, and I saw him no more. 
I only heard from time to time that he was not doing 
well. He had turned out a spendthrift, or an idler, 
or at least a never-do-well of some kind or another. 
He had enjoyed too much of the good things of this 
world in early life; and his pride had risen too high 
in the days of prosperity, and spoiled his entire life 
and his entire future for him. To his home he had 
now returned, after a restless and inglorious period 
of about forty years, hopeless and old and worn-out 
and poor. I would no more have known him than 
if I had never seen him before. Nobody in the whole 
crowd paid any attention to him. He was a forgotten 
figure, a stranger in his own native home, cast aside 
and ignored where he had once been the ''observed 
of all the observers.'' He had played his part in life, 
a poor part, a shameful part, an ignoble part; and 
the play was now over and ended. 

Again, I took a walk with one of my successors 
in one of my former parishes to the parish cemetery 



CLOSING WORDS 197 

not long ago. And as we passed a fresh-made grave, 
the priest startled me by giving me the name of the 
young woman who rested in it. '*Is she dead?" I 
asked with wonder and surprise; "and what was it 
that brought her to this early grave ?'' Then the priest 
began to tell me the sad story of her closing years, — 
how she strayed away from home, how she stepped 
aside into the primrose path of sin one day, how she 
went from bad to worse, and how her sinful life, all 
of a sudden, ended in a dea,th so melancholy that 
hardly a single redeeming feature could be found in it. 
And yet the picture I had in my mind of her was one 
of perfect sweetness and of faultless innocence. Such 
she had been when I had known her, and taught her, 
and seen her the last time. She had played her part 
on the stage of life, a short part, a miserable part; 
and the play was now over and ended. 

Again, I met an old and decrepit monk one day, 
as I was making my retreat at the Trappist Monastery 
at New Melleray. He was near his death, and has 
since passed into eternity. He had permission to 
speak to me, which was a great occurrence to him in 
his life of otherwise ceaseless silence. He told me, 
at considerable length, what an effort it cost him to 
leave the world as a young man, and to bury himself 
alive, as it were, within the walls of that strictest of 
all orders in the world. He looked back to his home 
for the last time from a hill over which he passed, 
so he told me ; but he could hardly see it through his 
tears; and he kept on weeping until he arrived at his 
destination. And he added: "God alone knows what 



198 YOUR HIDDEN TREASURE 

it cost me to follow His call. It broke my heart, and 
yet I followed it. But after the struggle was over 
I was happy, and grew happier from day to day. And 
now all the years of silence and self-sacrifice in this 
monastery seem like a mere dream to me. I am old 
and on the verge of eternity; but my life in God's 
service looks to me now as if it had been but a day.'* 
That life has since gone out. It played its part, a 
beautiful part, an admirable part; and the play is now 
over and ended. 

Reflections are not necessary. Yet I hope that the 
reader will pause and reflect. 



APPENDIX 

THE object which the writer had in view when 
he began this little work, was to pay, as best 
he knew how, a tribute to chastity and hu- 
mility. He hopes to have accomplished that end. 
Whether he accomplished it ill or well, is for the 
reader to decide. He himself, though he did his best, 
regrets extremely that he did not accomplish it better. 
Hoping to give seriousness and effectiveness to his 
little treatise by a slight addition, he takes the liberty 
to close it with a glance at eternity and with a few 
observations on the sorrows of sin, 

ETERNITY 

IT is very singular to see what great sacrifices men 
have made for the religion that is in them. The 
churches and the charitable institutions which 
cover the land represent but a small portion of those 
sacrifices. They are a proof, a consoling proof, that 
there are still souls by the thousands who know how 
to take into themselves great thoughts and great aims, 
and who look upon life with all the earnestness of 
men who firmly believe it to be but a preparation for 
eternity. And if we could look into the hearts of 
these people, and study their secret lives, we should 
find yet greater proofs of sacrifices made for their 
religion. We should find there, if we were permitted 

199 



200 APPENDIX 

to look at it, so much resistance to evil, so much striv- 
ing for good, so much praying in secret, so much 
sorrowing for sin, so much struggHng for perfection, 
and so much hoping and yearning for God. If these 
things could be seen in the hearts of men, as we see 
the churches they build and the charity they ad- 
minister, we should be doubly convinced of their faith 
in God and of their care for eternity. But, with all 
this granted, I venture to say that even these souls 
do not penetrate deep enough into the far-reaching 
meaning of life and the still more imfathomable depth 
of eternity. 

Before my birth, time did not exist for me. After 
my death, time for me shall exist no more. In that 
brief period of time, which began for me only a few 
years ago, and which shall have ceased to be for me 
a few years hence — in that brief period of time I am 
now living. As the flower first blooms, and then 
fades, and then perishes; so also my life has a short 
period in which to develop, a still shorter in which to 
blossom; and then sinks into rapid decay; and then 
dies. As the sun sets in the evening, and leaves dark- 
ness behind it to cover the earth; so also the sun of 
my life goes down, and leaves an awful darkness be- 
hind. The night has come in which I can see no more, 
and work no more, and repair no more. In other 
words, time for me has ceased to be, and eternity has 
begun. But is it not true that upon that vanished time 
my whole future eternity must rest ? What did I say 
— eternity? Do I grasp the meaning of that word? 
Do I understand how infinitely much I mean to repose 



ETERNITY 201 

upon the feeble foundation of my crumbling life ? Let 
me pause ; let me think ; let me reflect ; let me utter the 
word once more — eternity; let me see if I can get at 
its meaning. 

Eternity can be considered from different points of 
view. The first impression we get of it is that of 
its infinite duration. No extension of time, no matter 
how immense and unmeasured, can give us the right 
notion of eternity. Eternity is a thing of such mag- 
nitude that it surpasses our comprehension. Our mind 
cannot grasp it. Our imagination cannot picture it. 
Our fancy fails in its attempt to reach across its end- 
less extension. When all the generations of the earth 
shall have passed away, and be sleeping in their 
graves; when the sun shall have spent his last raylet 
of light; when the stars shall be extinguished, like 
burnt-out lamps; when the earth shall have changed, 
and grown old like a garment : then that whole period 
of time, from the dawn of creation to the end, shall 
not amount to so much as the tiniest part of eternity. 
If you will project your thoughts into the future, 
farther and farther and farther, as far as it is possible, 
with a supreme effort, to project them; eternity will 
still lie undiminished before you. Millions of years 
may roll away, will roll away in fact and at last; but 
in eternity they will constitute only the invisible point 
to a line reaching onward, onward, into untraceable 
and infinite depths. What now seems to us as a time 
of such duration as never to pass, will nevertheless 
pass away in reality. Let me suppose that God had 
created us just as soon as it was possible for His 



202 APPENDIX 

omnipotence to do so. What a period of endless 
duration would we have passed through in that case! 
No human calculation could sum up the years of that 
past. Yet they would actually have been gone through 
by us; and they would actually have passed away. 
And shall it not be thus with our future? What now 
seems to us like an impassable period shall neverthe- 
less have been gone through by our immortal souls 
some day. What now lies before us as a duration, 
to the end of which our attempting imagination can- 
not reach, shall one day lie behind us as the past 
through which we have actually lived. 

We have no information as to the time when God 
created the angels. We know from revelation that 
some of them fell; and the general teaching is, that 
God created man to take the place of the fallen angels. 
But the universe is made for man. So we legitimately 
conclude, or at least may conclude, that God had made 
the angels before He began with the creation of the 
material world. But scientists tell us, and they seem 
to prove their statements, that the world is in existence 
already for millions and millions of years. Nor does 
revelation in any way contradict this. The six days 
of creation, as given in the Bible, are evidently not 
days of twenty-four hours, as the sun was not made 
until some of the days had passed. In the Hebrew 
language, as also in some other languages, the word 
day can mean any period or extension of time. It is 
in perfect conformity with the ways of God to proceed 
thus slowly. In His limitless eternity. He can well 
afford to go slow when He comes to the realization 



ETERNITY 203 

of His plan of creation. That is the reason too why 
St. Augustine, with his usual depth of thought, re- 
marks that God is long-suffering because He is eternal. 
He wants to say by this that God has no need to hurry, 
not even with the vindication of His holy laws, not 
even with the punishment of His adversaries and 
enemies; because eternity is long enough in which to 
accomplish these things. Holy Scripture seems to 
express the same thought in other words when it says 
that before God "a thousand years are as yesterday." 

Let us therefore suppose that the angels were created 
millions and millions of years ago. Those who re- 
mained faithful have the vision of God, and are in- 
effably blessed in that vision. They enjoy a deep and 
undisturbable repose, and are happy with a happiness 
of which it is impossible for us to form the faintest 
conception. In this their changeless rest, and in this 
their boundless bliss, the years and the centuries roll 
by them, if I may so express myself, without their 
taking notice of it. They seem to participate of God's 
eternity; and that is the reason time does not appear 
to them as it does to us. To them also, ''a thousand 
years are as yesterday.'* Therefore, the countless 
centuries through which they passed, rolled rapidly 
away for them; and thus the whole duration of their 
wonderful and blessed life does not appear to them 
to have been long. 

But all the years that lie behind them lie also 
behind the angels that are fallen. That immense 
long period through which the good angels have 
gone, in their blessed repose, with so much ease 



204 APPENDIX 

and with such unnoticeable swiftness, the lost angels 
have gone through, also, with their misery and despair. 
These unhappy ones imagined, as they stood at the 
beginning of their damnation, that the first day, every 
moment of which was filled with unendurable pain, 
would never have an end. The magnitude of its 
misery seemed such as to make it impossible ever to 
be gotten over. Where one single hour contained 
more pain and bitterness than the whole world through- 
out its whole period of existence, it was almost im- 
possible to see beyond that hour, and altogether im- 
possible to see to the end of centuries and of ages. 
But what the daring spirit of the fallen angel could 
not pierce or penetrate in that hour, he has now long 
ago gone through with all his sufferings. 

So will it also be with us. If we shall be so fortunate 
as to win salvation, and to rest in the deep depth of 
God's own happiness, there shall glide by us also, 
centuries and ages, as if they were moments; and a 
thousand years shall appear like yesterday. In that 
blessed condition we shall soon have sped forward into 
the future, farther than it is now possible to see with 
the most piercing mind. But there shall then have 
rolled the same number of years over the heads of the 
unhappy damned, notwithstanding that they had to 
take them moment by moment, and that every moment 
was filled for them with a maddening torture. There 
finally arrived, after so many millions of years, the 
mind must have expanded like a boundless ocean. And 
with that expanded mind we shall then gaze into the 
future, farther and farther, and deeper and deeper, to 



ETERNITY 205 

a distance immeasurably greater than the most daring 
intellect can now conceive; but it is only to discover 
this tremendous truth, — that the future is still the same 
as ever, and that of eternity not a tittle has yet passed 
away. How small our life on earth looks after a 
serious consideration like that; and how full of a 
dreadful meaning it grows! 

O eternity ! eternity ! How little do men know thee ! 
How little do they understand thee ! How little do they 
penetrate to the real depth of thy mysteries! Thou 
lookest like a fantasy. Thou seemest like a dream. 
But thou art truth and fact and reality. I see so 
many others enter into thee. Every funeral cortege 
reminds me of thy nearness. Every grave into which 
I gaze shows me a glimpse of thee. It is a certainty 
that I am standing almost immediately before thee. It 
is a fact that thy doors are already opened to receive 
me. But what rests in thee for me is what I cannot 
now so much as conjecture. O eternity! eternity! 
what shalt thou once be to me? 

Thus much about the infinite duration of eternity. 
Considered from another side, it offers something just 
as meaningful and just as terrible, — its immutability. 
As I find it at my entrance into it, so shall it remain 
to me to the end, or rather without end. In it "the 
tree has fallen," as Scripture expresses it ; "and where 
it has fallen, there it shall lie." In it a change of 
will is not possible. If the will is fixed upon good 
when it enters it, it will remain thus fixed forever and 
ever. But if the will is fixed on evil at that time, it 
will remain in that evil, without the power of ever 



206 APPENDIX 

going back to good any more. That is the reason 
why so much depends upon the moment of death. 
Beyond that moment Hes eternity; and in it our will 
is confirmed — confirmed in everything, confirmed in 
good if it has chosen the good, confirmed in evil if it 
has chosen the evil. Here in life everything is change- 
able; and nothing is so changeable as the will of man. 
To-day he is an angel, and to-morrow a devil. To-day 
he is a sinner, and to-morrow a penitent. Between 
right and wrong, between virtue and vice, he pendu- 
lates, not infrequently, all his lifetime. To be subject 
to this changeableness is a deplorable condition for 
the good; but for the wicked it is an inestimable 
privilege; they can change back to good once more. 
For the greatest sinner there is still always a hope; 
and for the greatest saint, still always an insecurity. 
But in eternity all that is at an end. In it there is 
no such thing as change of mind and will. There the 
good remain good; and the wicked, wicked. There 
everything is in a state of stability and steadiness. 
There happiness is happiness forever, and pain is pain 
without end. The nature of things therefore requires 
that Heaven should remain Heaven, and hell, hell; 
because the blessed cannot cease to love God, and 
the damned cannot cease to hate Him. Love is hap- 
piness, and hate is misery. If you make love and hate 
unchangeable and everlasting, you make happiness and 
misery unchangeable and everlasting also. There are 
therefore two kinds of eternity — an eternity of joy, 
and an eternity of pain. Whoever has entered the one 
can never again have the chance to enter the other. 



ETERNITY 207 

If you once repose in the depth of a happy eternity, 
the unhappy one is forever avoided. But if the un- 
happy eternity has once received you, the happy one 
is so thoroughly lost to you that it is idle ever to 
dream of it again. And these two eternities are lying 
immediately before you. Death in grace will secure 
you the one. Death in sin will deliver you to the 
other. 

After these considerations, do you not find it true 
what I said at the outset, — that even the best of us 
do not sufficiently take the thought of eternity to 
heart? If Mathusala, with his nine hundred and 
sixty-nine years, could come back from the grave, he 
would think of that long life of his, considered in the 
light of the eternity from which he returned, as a mere 
dream which he dreamed in some drowsy night, and 
which is not worth to be remembered after the break 
of day. If the first soul lost, the unhappy Cain per- 
haps, would come to us, and tell us the story of her 
terrible eternity, oh, how we should feel crushed under 
the load of her narrated sorrows, and how we should 
shudder at the mere tale of her unending agonies! 
All that long hopeless suffering alone would be suffi- 
cient to make our imagination faint from the vastness 
of the image. But that eternity, with all the unmen- 
tionable anguish already endured, should be only at 
its beginning, and that it, after millions of ages like 
that long painful past already gone through, should 
still open a deeper and darker future than ever, — that 
is a thought too crushing even for the proud spirit of 
a Lucifer to bear. And about happy eternity you can 



208 APPENDIX 

go on reasoning in a similiar manner, only substituting 
joy for pain. Is it therefore possible that you should 
ever feel too deep a concern? If you had a thousand 
lives to give in a thousand painful martyrdoms for 
a happy eternity, and if you gave them cheerfully, 
it would still be a paltry sum paid for a good too 
great to be purchased at any price. If the richest and 
happiest man that ever lived, taking happiness in a 
worldly sense — if Solomon could come back to this 
earth and live his life over again, enjoy over again 
all its sweetness and all its glory, what do you suppose 
he would think of it? With infinitely greater clearness 
than of old, he would see through all its nothingness, 
because he would look at it in the light of eternity; 
and louder than before he would cry out: ''O vanity 
of vanities ! and all is vanity." And if his great soul 
is lost, as some have feared that it is, he might add, 
in language something like our Savior's: "Alas! Alas! 
what exchange can a man give for his soul ?'' 

And now, my dear sinner, what do you think of 
all this? The happiness of sin is so dear to you, the 
short-lived happiness that dies almost the same mo- 
ment in which it is born. That fleeting thing you love. 
And have you then no love at all for the happiness 
of your eternity, that happiness which transcends 
everything which goes by that name here on earth, and 
transcends it beyond all conception, that happiness 
which knows no diminishing, and which shall never 
have an end? What are wealth and glory, that you 
should aim at them and strive for them all the days 
of your life; whilst the treasures of eternity are laid 



THE SORROWS OF SJN 209 

at your feet by your Savior, and spurned away thank- 
lessly and unappreciatively by you ? Will you not pause 
and think, and reflect? Will you not enter into your- 
self, and find what is wrong in your soul, and eliminate 
that wrong without compromise and without mercy? 
Will you not change your views and, still more, the 
life which is perhaps the reason that you have them? 
Oh, think and do something, because it is a question 
of either winning or losing your eternity! 

THE SORROWS OF SIN 

THE world is full of sadness and disappointment 
There are many souls in the world ; but there 
is not one whom sorrow has spared, or whom 
it is goiilg to spare in the future. Look into those 
eyes as they sparkle with joy or gleam with intelli- 
gence. God only knows how often they shall be 
dimmed with tears before they close in their final 
sleep of death. One life is much sadder than another; 
but all lives are sufficiently sad to make us wonder 
why the world cannot be different from what it is. 
If in our happy childhood we could have looked into 
the future, and foreseen all the sadness with which 
our fleeting years here on earth were to be filled, the 
courage to take up life's burden would have forsaken, 
I am afraid, even the bravest of us. God knows this, 
and so He throws the veil over our future sorrows 
and troubles. But what is the meaning of all that 
sadness? Where does it come from? What purpose 
does it serve ? And to what end does it conduct us ? 



210 APPENDIX 

It does not come from God, because God is all 
blessedness and joy. It arose from sin; and sin is 
our own work, not God's. Sin brought death into 
the world. And from death and sin come all our 
other woes. God is life and immortality. God is joy 
and blessedness. United to Him before our fall, we 
were united to life and immortality, united to joy and 
to blessedness ; and there was no such thing as death, 
and no such thing as trouble and pain and sadness. 
Disunited from God through sin, we naturally began 
to fade and die, like the flower that is plucked from 
its parent root; and sorrow and sadness were the 
necessary accompaniment; and pain and disappoint- 
ment were the necessary consequence. 

Ever since that fatal day in Paradise, when our first 
father and mother began to waver in their loyalty to 
God, — and we their children repeat it over again and 
again by our personal sins, — ever since that time, the 
joy and happiness of the human race are gone, or at 
least reduced to such a small measure that our sojourn 
here has been called, very appropriately, a valley of 
tears. Fifty eventful years have rolled over me, with 
all that they contained for me, and with ten thousand 
memories of what they contained for others. There 
were joys, of course, and some pleasures, and some 
happiness; but, when all summed up, there was more 
of sorrow and sadness than anything else. One day 
we gaze with rapture on the beauty of a face we love; 
and a few years later we search in vain for some 
faint resemblance in those faded features to their 
former charms. One day we are in transports of 



THE SORROWS OF SIN 211 

pleasure over the devotion of a dear one ; and the next 
day we sob over his coffin in bitter disappointment; 
and for the few brief days of enjoyment with him, 
we must nourish the sadness of a broken heart through 
long years of separation. One day we are so proud 
of the dazzHng triumph of some beautiful talent; and 
the next day that wonderful mind is in its dotage, and 
the talent all gone or destroyed. One day we are so 
happy as to have the world kneeling at our feet in 
fondest idolatry; and the next day we are forgotten, 
forsaken, despised and alone. One day we are wealthy, 
and influential, and mighty; and the next day we are 
unfortunate and poor and powerless. One day we are 
in the midst of the deafening noise of the great world; 
and the next day we are sleeping in the deep imin- 
terrupted stillness of a lonely grave. The sum of it 
all, no matter how we view it, is sadness and dis- 
appointment in the end. And when we come to con- 
sider that that boundless ocean of sadness is caused 
by sin, and by nothing else, what a deep hatred for 
it ought we not to conceive in our hearts, and what 
resolute determination should we not make to commit 
it no more ! 

But there are two kinds of pain. The one is useless, 
and helpless, and hopeless. That is the kind of pain 
which afflicts the lost and cast-away soul in hell. It 
comes from sin, and is the vengeance for sin. The 
other kind of pain is useful, and helpful, and hopeful. 
It is the pain which we suffer here on earth. It comes 
from sin; but it purges from sin. It comes from sin; 
but it shows us the deceitfulness of sin, and fills 



212 APPENDIX 

us with a horror for it. So you see that God is good 
enough to turn our sorrow to our own benefit. He 
is merciful enough to let the sadness of death convince 
us of the real evil of sin, and of the hoUowness and 
emptiness and deceit fulness of its promise. Now the 
Devil may lie to us. Now he may make his fas- 
cinating proposals to our excited imagination. Now 
he may hold out and repeat another seductive promise 
like that of old when he said: ''Behold here the won- 
derful gift which I have it in my power to bestow 
upon you! Behold here all the kingdoms of the earth 
and the glory of them! All these will I give you, 
provided only that you will take them, and worship 
me instead of your Maker.'' We know now by our 
own experience what a deceitful language that is. We 
have tasted all the bitterness of death already before 
we die, as it were; and we have felt and seen all the 
sadness which it scatters over the earth. And sin 
is the cause of it all. If that is the fruit it bears, 
then cursed be the tree. If that is the way its promise 
of happiness is fulfilled, I will have nothing to do with 
it. If that is the way it cheats my hope and disap- 
points my heart, I must look upon it as my greatest 
evil, and hate it as such. That is the deep meaning and 
the salutary lesson of all that sadness which now so 
afflicts and depresses me. 

But it has another purpose to serve — a good and 
noble purpose. It is to chasten my character. It is 
to unite in me a gentleness and a sweetness and a 
kindness and a firmness and a resoluteness and a high- 
mindedness, which are all such beautiful qualities, and 



THE SORROWS OF Sm 213 

which could never have so fixed themselves into my 
soul, wihout that cup of sorrows which Some One 
gave me to drink. Oh, how I ought to bless my 
Savior for thus turning the sadness of sin to my own 
help and advantage ! And here again I marvel at the 
mercy of my Maker, and at the kindness of every 
grief that so cruelly compresses or even crushes my 
heart. 

And now let me see where all this sadness of life 
is to lead me. If only into the grave with its darkness 
and deadness, I had better never been born. But what 
does my divine Savior say, and what beautiful com- 
parison does He draw for my consolation? As the 
seed must rot that is laid into the ground, before it 
can produce another and a better and an ampler fruit ; 
so also must our earthly life fade away and decay, to 
produce that life of immortality and of glory which 
God has destined to be ours in another and better world. 
Look at the joy of the harvester who is gathering in 
an abundant harvest when the summer is over. Does 
he now regret the seed he has thrown away in the 
springtime ? Does he now remember the pain and the 
care and the fatigue of his labors? Does he now 
mourn over the fleetingness of the vanished season? 
Does he now pine for the beautiful past days of bloom 
and of blossom? Does he now sigh and weep over 
the fading of spring and the departure of summer? 
"Ah, no! Blessed be God that it is all over, and that 
my harvest is brought into security/' That will be 
the prayer of his thanksgiving. That will be the 
expression of his intensest thought and his deepest 



214 APPENDIX 

feeling. And so ought it also to be with the poor 
lonely wanderer on earth. His greatest gladness 
should come upon him when his life is over. His 
greatest joy should He in the hope of his departure. 
His hour of deepest satisfaction should be the hour 
of his death. Every loss on earth is a gain in eternity. 
Every fleeting sadness of life is an abiding blessedness 
in Heaven. Is it possible to add anything else to the 
boundless measure of consolation which a good and 
merciful Providence has provided for our quivering 
and fainting hearts? The cup of sadness seems so 
bitter to drink before we put it to our lips; but how 
is it sweetened at the sight of our Savior's passion; 
and how is it still more sweetened at the sight of our 
blessed eternity! And how is it sweetened beyond 
measure after it is drunk empty without complaint ! 

It is not an easy task to do justice to this subject. 
It is not an easy task to wipe away the tears of the 
weeping. It is not an easy task to make sorrow look 
beautiful. It is not an easy task to picture the blessed- 
ness of pain in the midst of tribulations. But I hope 
to have done something in the way of filling up your 
hearts with that divine comfort which is greater than 
any grief which they can hold. 

Enlarging still on this subject, let me now end by 
giving, in poetry, a playful and yet very serious answer 
to an objection once made against my familiarizing 
myself with death. There is no depressing, but rather 
an up-lifting, though sobering, power in such con- 
siderations. 



DEATH AND THE DEAD 215 

DEATH AND THE DEAD 

SO you found fault with that part of my letter 
Which spoke of going home to my last rest ; 
And you insist that it would be much better 
To quench such thoughts, or leave them unexpressed. 

Consider, please, that I am growing old. 

That it is natural to dream of rest 
When there is little in this world to hold 

My heart with its affections in my breast. 

There may be sadness in my soul just now, 
But bitterness I know that there is none ; 

The gloom is sweet that settles on my brow ; 
^Tis but remembrance of the good things gone. 

Gone did I say? Ah! yes; and that sad word 
Prompts me to wish that I might also go. 

*'Come,'' says a dear sweet voice I have not heard, 
Save in my heart, for thirty years or so. 

"Come to this better world, and find that I 
Have sorrowed deeply over all thy pain; 

Come, lay thy heavy burden down and die; 
Come, and be happy with me here again. 

'^Those others whom thou didst invite to fill 
The place left empty in thy soul by me 

Had other aims than to lift up thy will, 
And other hopes than be a help to thee. 



216 APPENDIX 

"They were not worthy that a heart Hke thine 
Be laid, with all its treasures, at their feet; 

They did not try to make thy Hfe divine; 
They did not even try to make it sweet. 

''Here all is changeless, and thou need'st not fear 
That things shall fail thee, as they failed before; 

Nor hearts nor treasures ever fail up here ; 
And grief and pain and sorrow are no more/' 

Thus much the whisper of that well-known voice, 
Hushed, though remembered, for so many years. 

I heard it, and I cannot but rejoice 

Ev'n in my sadness and amid my tears. 

And will you say, then, that I should not look 
For the deep glory of my setting sun. 

Because my leaving shall be hard to brook 
By those who'll miss me when I shall be gone. 

Alas ! it IS a foolish, fond mistake 

(Excuse my firm and seeming harsh reply), 

But well I know that not a heart will break, 
Except my own, when I shall come to die. 

A life gone out, no matter what its fame, 
Is like a wave that's broken on the shore: 

A noise is made ; you hear an echoed name ; 
'Tis hushed again, and shall be heard no more. 



DEATH AND THE DEAD 217 

The only treasure that shall with us stay, 
The only beauty that shall never fade. 

The only joy that shall not pass away, 

Is that which God for the beyond has made. 

There all my wants to their minutest part, 
There all my wishes in their widest scope. 

There all the pinings of my hungry heart, 
Shall be fulfilled beyond my boldest hope. 

And should I not, when I am restless here, 
And worn with toil, look longing over there. 

And dream my dream about the dead ones dear, 
For whom I more than for the living care. 

Nor is it strange that in this hour to-night 
I should be softened with a home-sick touch. 

Or that the dear, dear dead should thus invite 
Me to forsake this world I loved so much. 

A few more years, and I am at the brink ; 

A few more joys, and all on earth is o'er ; 
A few more sighs (will you not let me think?) ; 

A few more tears, and I shall be no more. 

Alas ! 'tis a sad language, that I know ; 

But sadder still it were to speak it not. 
And if I feel a sort of wish to go, 

'Tis not from discontentment with my lot. 



218 APPENDIX 

And if I long to leave my friends behind, 

'Tis not for any slight that I recall ; 
Far from me is it to be thus unkind: 

God only knows how well I love them all. 

Nor is this lonely, lacking world the thing 
Which now disgusts me, for I love it still: 

'Tis that my restless soul is on the wing, 
And feels a void which God alone can fill. 

'Tis that the rest I long for is not here; 

'Tis that I pine for something over there; 
'Tis that the dead are still so deeply dear; 

'Tis that their company I long to share. 

Why, even now, as the lamp throws its light 
So late upon this page — why, even now, 

In the dead stillness of this lonely night, 

They come and lure me, though I know not how. 

I know not how they make themselves so sweet, 
But sweeter than the living far they seem ; 

And one, the fairest, sitting at my feet, 
Looks, just as once she looked, a lonely dream. 

And then a blessedness I never knew, 

Full of a rest and peace not of this earth ; 

And then a fresher life, fresh as the dew, — 
Convince me, death is but another birth, — 



DEATH AND THE DEAD 219 

Another life, where all the pangs and tears 
Of youth and beauty weeping o'er decay, 

Where all the agonies of other years, 

With other heart-aches, all are wiped away. 

Another life — did I say this of death? 

A life far dearer than the dearest here. 
How sweet for such to give away my breath ! 

And, truly, other it cannot appear. 

Then let the evening stillness wake no fears ; 

Then let the gathering shadows look not sad ; 
Then in my night, let loved ones shed no tears. 

But think of all the wondrous hope I had. 

And at my grave if you to-morrow kneel. 
Making remembrance yet a while your care, 

I thank you for the sorrow that you feel ; 

But more I thank you for your precious prayer. 

How sweet is death, how sweeter still the tomb. 
If but of grace, in life, there was no waste. 

If only for her God the soul had room, 
The heart was humble, and the flesh was chaste ! 



220 APPENDIX 

PARTING 

MY task is finished. As I said elsewhere, it waS 
a task of affection; and I am almost sorry 
that it is ended. As a father sends his son 
into the world to make or to seek his fortune, so I 
now send my book. Whether it is destined to make 
friends who receive it with kindness, or to meet only 
strangers who refuse to become acquainted, is more 
than I can at present conjecture. I am sending it 
forth, not for the purpose of begging favors from 
others, but rather for the purpose of bringing favors 
to them. But perhaps the world will feel towards 
me as the great Johnson felt towards an unwanted 
patron when he wrote, with such withering sarcasm, 
about the kindness of some one who wanted to "en- 
cumber him with his help.'' 

My book is meant to carry the treasures of true 
peace and happiness into souls that are willing to 
receive them. But whether it is tactful enough, and 
engaging enough, and able enough, and fascinating 
enough, to accomplish that- end, remains to be seen. 
Its merits alone must determine its fate. If it has no 
merits, I shall want to see it buried in utter oblivion. 
But even in that case I could hardly be sorry for the 
useless pains which I expended upon it. My conscience 
tells me that I had a noble intention; and the merit 
of that is untouchable by either failure or success. 
If the book succeeds, I shall not be elated. If it fails, 
I shall not be troubled. 

The great world was not before my mind when I 



PARTING 821 

wrote. I had in view a small number, a little crowd 
in whom I was intensely interested, and whom I deeply 
loved. I mean all those who are, or had once been, 
my children. They are scattered far and wide; but 
in my heart and memory I hold them closely together. 
Some of them were kind to me with a kindness too 
beautiful to leave unrequited or to forget. Some of 
them had taken pains to sweeten my life and to give 
me joy; and they felt hurt, I know, when it looked 
to them as if I had no return to make. I longed to 
leave them a token of appreciation, as well as of 
remembrance, and to crown my cares for them, 
sweeter to me than they knew, with one more signal 
effort to do them good — and so I wrote this book. 
If others read, I shall fejel thankful and pleased; but 
if they read, I shall feel happy and consoled. Of this 
kind of reader I now take my regretful leave in the 
following closing poem. Not clearing me, perhaps, 
from the charge, sometimes preferred against me, of 
being too much of a recluse and too distant to my 
children ; it ought, however, to free me, I think, from 
the further suspicion of coldness and indifference. I 
wrote with a father's affection, with a father's hope 
of doing good; but the reader will be benefited only 
if he can believe and feel that that is true. 

Dear faithful child, wilt thou too think, as thought 

Another, that I have no heart in me. 
Because to a kind word I answered not? 

Why, child, with a whole book I answer thee. 



222 APPENDIX 

My words so oft, when I of God had spoken, 
Thou, listening, didst lock up in thy heart's core. 

I long to leave thee a more lasting token, 

For soon my silenced tongue shall speak no more. 

And if for me in that dear heart of thine, 
Which I neglected, there is still a nook, 

I in return, with gratitude in mine, 

Lay at thy feet this tribute, — my poor book. 

What did I say — ^neglected thee? Ah, no! 

That fault, among my failings, has no place; 
For oft I gazed, wherever I did go. 

Upon the charm of thy remembered face. 

Knd oft I dwelt upon the things which thou 
Didst do, or say, or look, though unexpressed. 

And often I indulged the wish that now, 
And ever, I might cause thee to be blessed. 

But does this idle throbbing of the brain 

Not come, a hindrance, into life's great task? — ' — 

Then let me rally, with whatever pain. 
And do what duty and my conscience ask. 

But that means silence, solitude, and prayer, 
And sacrifice of many cherished things. 

Of friendship for the sake of priestly care, 
And of much else round which affection clings. 



PARTING 223 

And then it looks as if I had no heart, 

Whereas, in truth, I have too much indeed 

Too much to act, as I should act, my part- 



Too much to feel secure without great heed. 

So let me, dear one, take thee by the hand. 
And look into thy face, and tell thee to 

Forgive my silence, and to understand 
That love which speaks not can be still quite true. 

And let me hope that, in that vast beyond 
Whose murmurings I already seem to hear. 

Our souls may find each other just as fond 
As e'er they were on earth, and just as dean 



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